The agricultural Internet of Things (Ag-IoT) paradigm has tremendouspotential in transparent integration of underground soil sensing, farm machinery,and sensor-guided irrigation systems with the complex social network of growers,agronomists, crop consultants, and advisors. The aim of the IoT in agriculturalinnovation and security chapter is to present agricultural IoT research and paradigmto promote sustainable production of safe, healthy, and profitable crop and animalagricultural products.
Development processes, economic growth and agricultural modernization affect women and men in different ways and have not been gender neutral. Women are highly involved in agriculture, but their contribution tends to be undervalued and overseen. Sustainable agricultural innovations may include trade-offs and negative side-effects for women and men, or different social groups, depending on the intervention type and local context. Promising solutions are often technology-focused and not necessarily developed with consideration of gender and social disparity aspects.
This chapter presents an analytic framework to identify agricultural innovations that are sustainable and suitable for the poorest and most vulnerable parts of the population. The framework contains a set of tools to collect and evaluate information on appropriate innovations based on relevant criteria. It considers the dimensions of environmental resilience, economic viability, and social sustainability, as well as technical sustainability considering important properties of the innovation itself.
The development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has to meet the needs of farmers and sustainably support the competitiveness of agriculture in a rapidly changing digital world. Under certain conditions of use, digital tools could facilitate the application to agriculture of the historical, methodological and socio-economic principles defining agroecology. This chapter is composed of four sections. In the first section we define a framework to study agricultural IC tools.
The efforts to adapt to climate change in developing countries are in their infancy, and hopefully CSA will be a major contributor to these efforts. But CSA itself is evolving, and there is a growing need to refine and adapt it to the changing realities. This section of the book focus on the implications of the empirical findings for devising effective strategies and policies to support resilience and the implications for agriculture and climate change policy at national, regional and international levels.
The drylands of the Global South are facing challenges from human population growth, unsustainable land-management practices, and climate change. Such problems are complex and can no longer be adequately addressed using traditional, top-down means. Rather, increased reliance on public participation is needed to better identify key research questions and interventions that promote positive change. Major actors in these approaches would include communities, applied researchers, outreach agents, policy makers, and planners working in tandem.
The research programme URBAL (Urban-driven Innovations for Sustainable Food Systems) (2018–2020), funded by Agropolis Fondation (France), Fondation Daniel & Nina Carasso (France/Spain), and Fundazione Cariplo (Italy), and coordinated by CIRAD (France) and the Laurier Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada), seeks to build and test a participatory methodology to identify and map the impact pathways of urban-driven innovations on all the dimensions of food systems sustainability.
In this chapter the authors compute measures of total factor productivity (TFP) growth for developing countries and then contrast TFP growth with technological capital indexes. In developing these indexes, the authors incorporate schooling capital to yield two new indexes: Invention-Innovation Capital and Technology Mastery. They find that TFP performance is strongly related to technological capital and that technological capital is required for TFP and cost reduction growth.
The paper sets out the general concepts and principles of the Agricultural Innovation Systems approach, and its application to agricultural research and development, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. It is intended for those interested in applying new approaches to research with farmers, NGOs and the private sector that lead to developmental outcomes.
This chapter documents the learning process within the framework of innovation of soil fertility management practices that emerged from the implementation of Participatory Extension Approach (PEA) as part of service delivery reorientation within the Limpopo Department of Agriculture in South Africa.The chapter gives a narrative description of what transpired during the interaction between researchers, extension officers and farmers, the processes involved, the lessons and the conclusion.