For millennia, humans have modified plant genes in order to develop crops best suited for food, fiber, feed, and energy production. Conventional plant breeding remains inherently random and slow, constrained by the availability of desirable traits in closely related plant species. In contrast, agricultural biotechnology employs the modern tools of genetic engineering to reduce uncertainty and breeding time and to transfer traits from more distantly related plants.
This paper has been prepared under the guidelines provided by the TAP Secretariat at the FAO, as a contribution to the G20 initiative TAP, which includes near 40 partners and is facilitated by FAO. Its purpose is to provide a Regional synthesis report on capacity needs assessment for agricultural innovation, with capacity gaps identified and analyzed, including recommendations to strengthen agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and draft policy recommendations to address the capacity gaps.
This report assesses trends in investments, human resource capacity, and research outputs in agricultural R&D -excluding the private (for-profit) sector- in LAC. It is an update of Stads and Beintema (2009), covering a more complete set of countries and focusing primarily on developments during 2006-2012/2013.
Public-private partnerships are a new way of carrying out research and development (R&D) in Latin America's agricultural sector. These partnerships spur innovation for agricultural development and have various advantages over other institutional arrangements fostering R&D. This report summarizes the experiences of a research project that analyzed 125 public-private research partnerships (PPPs) in 12 Latin American countries. The analysis indicates that several types of partnerships have emerged in response to the various needs of the different partners.
In this book, the authors assessed the role of biotechnology innovation for sustainable development in emerging and developing economies. This book compiles studies that each illustrate the potential, demonstrated value and challenges of biotechnology applications for sustainable agricultural innovation and/or industrial development in a national, regional and international context.
Rapid climatic and socio-economic changes challenge current agricultural R&D capacity. The necessary quantum leap in knowledge generation should build on the innovation capacity of farmers themselves. A novel citizen science methodology, triadic comparisons of technologies or tricot, was implemented in pilot studies in India, East Africa, and Central America. The methodology involves distributing a pool of agricultural technologies in different combinations of three to individual farmers who observe these technologies under farm conditions and compare their performance.
This book discusses innovation problems and opportunities for family farming in the different regions of the American continent, as well as the role of hemispheric, regional and national agrifood research systems. Likewise, it provides a description of the main innovation actions and projects promoted by IICA, and the main success cases over recent years.
Fair Trade is a labeling initiative aimed at improving the lives of the poor in developing countries by offering better terms to producers and helping them to organize. Although Fair Trade-certified products still comprise a small share of the market—for example, Fair Trade-certified coffee exports were 1.8 percent of global coffee exports in 2009—growth has been very rapid over the past decade. Whether Fair Trade can achieve its intended goals has been hotly debated in academic and policy circles.
This brochure is on the Virtual Extension and Research Information and Communication Network (VERCON), a conceptual model that any country can use and adapt to improve access to agricultural information and knowledge sharing and to strengthen the linkages between rural institutions and individuals, using information and communication technologies.
Cette brochure présente le réseau virtuel de communication pour la vulgarisation et la recherche (VERCON), qui est un modèle conceptuel que tout pays peut utiliser et adapter pour améliorer l’accès à l’information agricole et le partage des connaissances, ainsi que pour renforcer les interactions entre les personnes et les institutions du monde rural. Pour cela, le réseau a recours aux technologies de l’information et de la communication.