Este documento recoge los principales avances y logros de innovación de los más de ochocientos agricultores y agricultoras, “Héroes de la Alimentación”, y representantes institucionales, que participaron desde el año 2018 en el proyecto “Desarrollo de Capacidades para Sistemas de Innovación Agrícola en El Salvador” (CDAIS, por sus siglas en inglés).
La participación de los pequeños productores en procesos de investigación asociados a los sistemas productivos agrícolas ha sido difícil de lograr. Por esto el objeto de la presente investigación fue el de lograr la vinculación de pequeños productores de yuca (Manihot esculenta Crantz) a procesos de investigación en la región caribe de Colombia. Por lo anterior, se implementaron ensayos de campo en los que se empleó un método de investigación participativa a través de modelos integrados de producción.
The importance of extension services in helping smallholder farmers to address the many challenges of agricultural production cannot be over-emphasized. However, relatively few studies have been conducted that investigate how the capacities of agricultural extension agents can be built to more effectively assist smallholder farmers in managing climate risks and impacts. As climate change is a key threat to smallholder food production, addressing this issue is increasingly important.
There is an emerging body of literature analyzing how smallholder farmers in developing countries can benefit from modern supply chains. However, most of the available studies concentrate on export markets and fail to capture spillover effects that modern supply chains may have onlocal markets. Here, we analyze the case of sweet pepper in Thailand, which was initially introduced as a product innovation in modern supplychains, but which is now widely traded also in more traditional markets.
Agricultural innovations are seen as a key avenue to improve nutrition and health in smallholder farm households. But details of these agriculture-nutrition-health linkages are not yet well understood. While there is a broad literature on the adoption of agricultural technologies, most studies primarily focus on impacts in terms of productivity and income. Nutrition and health impacts have rarely been analyzed. In this article, we argue that future impact studies should include nutrition and health dimensions more explicitly.
We look at the trade-off between smallholder cocoa intensification and the ecosystem in Indonesia and investigate the determinants of environmental efficiency in cocoa production. In our analysis, we apply a distance output function that includes cocoa production and the abundance of native rainforest plants as outputs. Our data set, based on a household and environment survey conducted in 2015, allows us to analyze 208 cocoa producers with both measured and self-reported data. We find that the intensification of cocoa farms results in higher ecosystem degradation.
Fairtrade certification has recently gained in importance for various export crops produced in developing countries. One of Fairtrade's main objectives is to improve the social conditions of smallholder farmers. Previous research showed that Fairtrade has positive effects on farmers' sales prices and incomes in many situations. However, more detailed analysis of the effects on food security and other dimensions of household living standard is rare.
Confrontés aux évolutions des enjeux et modèles de développement touchant les secteurs de l’agriculture et de l’alimentation, les organismes de recherche interrogent les méthodes d’évaluation des impacts liées aux activités de recherche. En effet les cadres méthodologiques conventionnels utilisés depuis les années 1950 ne répondent plus aux attentes sociétales et aux réalités de l’activité de recherche dans ce domaine.
La concertation semble en passe de devenir une norme en matière de gestion des ressources naturelles et de l'environnement. Pourtant, son impact reste difficile à caractériser, ce qui génère une forme de désenchantement auprès de ses promoteurs. Au cours d'un projet de recherche concertée à La Réunion, nous avons cherché à mieux comprendre comment la concertation influence l'écologie territoriale.
Malaria afflicts many people in the developing world, and due to its direct and indirect costs it has widespread impacts on growth and development. The global impact of malaria on human health, productivity, and general well-being is profound. Human activity, including agriculture, has been recognized as one of the reasons for the increased intensity of malaria around the world, because it supports the breeding of mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite.