La publicación “Guía para el fortalecimiento de las capacidades funcionales para la innovación en la agricultura” fue desarollada por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentación (FAO) y el Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación para la Agricultura (IICA) con el apoyo de la Red Latinoamericana de Servicios de Extensión Rural (RELASER) y la Plataforma de Agricultura Tropical (TAP). El propósito de esta guía es contribuir al desarrollo de las capacidades funcionales entre individuos y organizaciones que apoyan la innovación en América Latina.
Extension and advisory services (EAS) play a key role in facilitating innovation for sustainable agricultural development. To strengthen this role, appropriate investment and conducive policies are needed in EAS, guided by evidence. It is therefore essential to examine EAS characteristics and performance in the context of modern, pluralistic and increasingly digital EAS systems. In response to this need, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has developed guidelines and instruments for the systematic assessment of national EAS systems.
Extension and advisory services (EAS) play a key role in facilitating innovation processes, empowering marginalized groups through capacity development, and linking farmers with markets. EAS are increasingly provided by a range of actors and funded from diverse sources. With the broadened scope of EAS and the growing complexity of the system, the quantitative performance indicators used in the past (for example related to investment, staffing or productivity) are no longer adequate to assess the performance of EAS systems.
Extension and advisory services (EAS) play a key role in facilitating innovation processes, empowering marginalized groups through capacity development, and linking farmers with markets. Advisory services are increasingly provided by a range of actors and funded from diverse sources. With the broadened scope of EAS and the growing complexity of the system, the quantitative performance indicators used in the past (e.g. related to investment, staffing or productivity) are not adequate anymore to understand whether the system is well-functioning.
Mission-Oriented Innovation Policies (MOIPs) are one approach that can advance the required transformations. As our colleague Philippe Larrue noted in a 2021 paper, MOIPs are "a co-ordinated package of policy and regulatory measures tailored specifically to mobilise science, technology and innovation in order to address well-defined objectives related to a societal challenge, in a defined timeframe".
In the rapidly changing context of agri-food systems, extension and advisory services (EAS) are expected to provide new roles and services that go well beyond the traditional production-related technology transfer. Consequently, pluralistic EAS systems with diverse actors have emerged with diverse actors, including private and civil society organisations. These multiple EAS actors must adopt innovative entrepreneurship models if they are to act proactively and respond to the increasing diversity of farmers’ demands while staying independent and sustainable.
This note is a preview on the agricultural innovation systems (AIS) assessment methdology which is being tested in the nine countries of the European Union-funded TAP-AIS DeSIRA project. It presents the rationale, the steps, ethe expected outputs and outcomes.
Assessing or understanding the agriculture innovation system (AIS) is an essential step to better understand the needs, new skills and functions needed by the actors and the system. To accelerate the uptake of innovation and progress towards eradicating poverty, there is an urgent need for well-coordinated, demand-driven, and market-oriented information, knowledge, technologies and services.
The Newsletter of the Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP) provides regular updates on activities by TAP and its partners, on the projects and on upcoming events. This issue specifically refers to the period from November 2021 to January 2022.
The government of Rwanda is promoting agricultural intensification focused on the production of a small number of targeted commodities as a central strategy to pursue the joint policy goals of economic growth, food security and livelihood development. The dominant approach to increase the productive capacity of the land, crops and animal resources has been through large-scale land consolidation, soil fertility management, and the intensive use of biotechnology and external inputs.