This paper illustrates the Small Stock Innovation Platform, an initiative which is one of the key tangible outcomes of the Strengthening Capacity in Agricultural Research for Development in Africa (SCARDA) program, focused on strengthening capacity in agricultural research systems in selected countries and institutions in all three sub-regions of Sub Saharan Africa.
This brief is part of the series, A Field Guide for Disaster Risk Reduction in Southern Africa: Key Practices for DRR Implementers, coordinated by the FAO Subregional Office for Disaster Risk Reduction/Management for Southern Africa. The brief provides practical guidelines on storage practices and methodologies to assist southern African farmers prone to natural hazards, mainly cyclones, droughts and floods.
Owing to its devices that are the ember furnace, the fat collection tray, the indirect smoke generator system and the hot air distributor, the FAO-Thiaroye processing technique (FTT-Thiaroye), focus of this methodological guide, strengthens the functions of existing improved smoking techniques in small-scale fisheries.
This paper traces the evolution of the innovation systems framework within the agricultural sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, and presents a conceptual framework for agricultural innovation systems. The difference between innovation ecology/ecosystems and intervention-based innovations systems is highlighted, given that these two concepts are used at different levels in promoting and sustaining agricultural innovations.
This paper presents findings of an explorative case study that looked at 22 organisations identified as fulfilling an intermediary role in the Kenyan agricultural sector. The results show that these organisations fulfill functions that are not limited to distribution of knowledge and putting it into use. The functions also include fostering integration and interaction among the diverse actors engaged in innovation networks and working on technological, organisational and institutional innovation.
The Farmer Field School (FFS) approach has been very successful and witnessed a strong expansion in many areas beyond crop production. Notwithstanding this success, the adoption of FFS in national extension often remains problematic and FFS activities have often been implemented in the margin of national institutions with strong reliance on donor funding. The creation of an enabling environment for institutional support is essential for expanding the effort, improving quality, and strengthening impact and continuity of the FFSs.
This publication represents a synthesis of assessments of national agricultural innovation systems in countries of Central Asia, South Caucasus and Turkey. The first chapter gives an introduction of the project “Capacity Development for Analysis and Strengthening of Agricultural Innovation Systems in Central Asia and Turkey”, out of which the current publication reports about one of the project outputs achieved.
Feeding an additional three billion people over the next four decades, along with providing food security for another one billion people that are currently hungry or malnourished, is a huge challenge. Meeting those goals in a context of land and water scarcity, climate change, and declining crop yields will require another giant leap in agricultural innovation. The aim of this paper is to stimulate a dialogue on what new approaches might be needed to meet these needs and how innovative funding mechanisms could play a role.
The paper uses a stochastic frontier analysis of production functions to estimate the level of technical efficiency in agriculture for a panel of 29 developing countries in Africa and Asia between 1994 and 2000. In addition, the paper examines how different components of an agricultural innovation system interact to determine the estimated technical inefficiencies.The paper has been presented at the Southern Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, Birmingham, AL, February 4-7, 2012.
This paper explores the use of actor-oriented approaches in natural resource-based development. It begins by reviewing the need to bring an analysis of actor linkages, coalitions and information flows higher on the agenda in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Various tools which could assist in doing this are introduced and their use is illustrated in case studies of natural resource-based research and development (R&D) projects in Nepal and Bangladesh.