Regional agroecological systems are examples of complex adaptive systems, where sustainability is promoted by social networks that facilitate information sharing, cooperation, and connectivity among specialized components of the system. Much of the existing literature on social capital fails to recognize how networks support multiple social processes.
Public institutions involved in research that aims to strengthen the productivity, profitability and adaptiveness of industries face a multiplicity of challenges when managing for the emergence of cost effective solutions to problems. We reflect upon the learnings of a Government sponsored Visiting Fellow’s programme that we describe as a knowledge management (KM) intervention within Australia’s primary industries Research, Development and Extension (R, D and E) system.
So far, numerous studies have exhibited Silicon Valley and other thriving innovation ecosystems by distinguishing special characteristics in which their survival rely on sustaining activities that convert them to specific regions. These regions provide ready-made grounds for networking to be innovative. Meantime, it is struggling for innovations to be transformed into measurable economic results if players encounter a weak network of collaborative relationships in the ecosystem.
Research on next generation agricultural systems models shows that the most important current limitation is data, both for on-farm decision support and for research investment and policy decision making. One of the greatest data challenges is to obtain reliable data on farm management decision making, both for current conditions and under scenarios of changed bio-physical and socio-economic conditions.
This case study demonstrates how change agents can utilize networked learning communities (NLCs) with shared leadership to provide the structural supports for learning and influence the implementation of innovations within a social system. Our focus is the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), a large school system operating 164 accredited schools domestically and internationally.
The Worldwide Extension Study provides empirical data on the human and financial resources of agricultural extension and advisory systems worldwide, as well as other important information on: the primary extension service providers in each country (e.g.: public, private and/or non-governmental); which types and groups of farmers are the primary target groups (e.g.: large, medium, and/or small-scale farmers, including rural women) for each extension organization; how each organization’s resources are allocated to key extension and advisory service functions; each organization’s information a
This paper examines the role of postsecondary agricultural education and training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of the region’s agricultural innovation systems. Specifically, the paper looks at how AET in sub-Saharan Africa can contribute to agricultural development by strengthening innovative capacity, or the ability of individuals and organisations to introduce new products and processes that are socially or economically relevant, particularly with respect to smallholder farmers who represent the largest group of agricultural producers in the region.
As calls for bolstering environmental services on croplands have grown more insistent during the past two decades, the search for ways to foster sustainable, reduced input agriculture has become more urgent. In this context authors re-examine by means of a meta-analysis the argument, first proposed by Robert McC. Netting, that small scale, mixed crop – livestock farming, a common livelihood among poor rural peoples, encourages environmentally sustainable agricultural practices.
In developing regions with high levels of poverty and a dependence on climate sensitive agriculture, studies focusing on climate change adaptation, planning, and policy processes, have gained relative importance over the years. This study assesses the impact of farmer perceptions regarding climate change on the use of sustainable agricultural practices as an adaptation strategy in the Chinyanja Triangle, Southern Africa.
Small-scale farmers in the Brazilian Amazon collectively hold tenure over more than 12 million ha of permanent forest reserves, as required by the Forest Code. The trade-off between forest conservation and other land uses entails opportunity costs for them and for the country, which have not been sufficiently studied. We assessed the potential income generated by multiple use forest management for farmers and compared it to the income potentially derived from six other agricultural land uses.