he purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to take stock of the current state of knowledge about inclusive value-chain development (VCD) in the context of international agricultural research; and second, to draw out the implications for future research and action.
This paper is based on a review of recent research papers authored by professionals affiliated with international agricultural research centers and their partners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
This paper develops an expanded conceptual framework to understand value chain performance based on the theory of complex adaptive systems. The framework combines seven common properties of complex systems: time, uncertainty, sensitivity to initial conditions, endogenous shocks, sudden change, interacting agents and adaptation
In this paper the authors present the diagnosis and re-design of farm systems as part of an innovation process involving farmers and scientists to improve the sustainability of family farms in south Uruguay. Although were selected farms with a large variation in resource endowment, they shared the main critical points of sustainability: low productivity and deteriorated soil quality.
The purpose of this article is to investigate effective reformism: strategies that innovation networks deploy to create changes in their environment in order to establish a more conducive context for the realization and durable embedding of their innovation projects. Using a case study approach, effective reformism efforts are analyzed in a technological innovation trajectory related to the implementation of a new poultry husbandry system and an organizational innovation trajectory concerning new ways of co-operation among individual farms to establish economies of scale.
This study identifies entry points for innovation for sustainable intensification of agricultural systems. An agricultural innovation systems approach is used to provide a holistic image of (relations between) constraints faced by different stakeholder groups, the dimensions and causes of these constraints, and intervention levels, timeframes and types of innovations needed. The authors aim at showing that constraints for sustainable intensification of agricultural systems are mainly of economic and institutional nature.
This paper describes the research path followed by a team of researchers who had investigated the nitrate problem in a case study area, and who became aware of the low impact of their data on the policy debate and on the practices that – as the research team saw it – had given rise to the problem in the first place. They embarked on a series of interactions first with participatory action researchers from the SLIM project (see Fig.
There is increasing evidence that public organizations dedicated exclusively to research and development (R&D) in agribusiness need systematic management tools to incorporate the uncertainties and complexities of technological and nontechnological factors of external environments in its long-term strategic plans. The major issues are: What will be the agribusiness science and technology (S&T) needs be in the future? How to prepare in order to meet these needs?
This paper examines the determinants of participation in an outsourced extension programs and its impact of smallholder farmers' net farm income in Msinga, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to obtain cross-sectional farm-level data from a sample of 300 farm households, using a structured questionnaire for the interview. The determinants and impacts of participation were estimated using the propensity score matching (PSM) to account for sample selection bias.
In this paper, is first described the design and development process of a modular ICT application system called GeoFarmer. Geofarmer was designed to provide a means by which farmers can communicate their experiences, both positive and negative, with each other and with experts and consequently better manage their crops and farms. We designed GeoFarmer in a collaborative, incremental and iterative process in which user needs and preferences were paramount.