To respond to threats of climate change, Benin has joined the international community in the development and implementation of climate policies.
TAP and its partners carried out regional surveys in Asia, Africa and Central America to assess priorities, capacities and needs in national agricultural innovation systems. This document provides a Regional synthesis report on capacity needs assessment for agricultural innovation in Africa. FARA was selected as Recipient Organization by FAO to facilitate TAP implementation in Africa. This is mainly due to its position as the umbrella organization bringing together and forming coalitions of major regional stakeholders in agricultural research and development.
This book documents a unique series of 19 case studies where agricultural biotechnologies were used to serve the needs of smallholders in developing countries. They cover different regions, production systems, species and underlying socio-economic conditions in the crop (seven case studies), livestock (seven) and aquaculture/fisheries (five) sectors. Most of the case studies involve a single crop, livestock or fish species and a single biotechnology.
Within the context of the European-funded JOLISAA FP7 project (JOint Learning in Innovation Systems in African Agriculture), several agricultural innovation experiences focused on smallholders were assessed in Benin, Kenya and South Africa. Fifty-six cases were characterised through review of grey literature and interviews with resource persons according to a common analytical framework inspired by the innovation systems perspective. Of these, 13 were assessed in greater depth through semistructured interviews, focus-group discussions and multistakeholder workshops.
Rice is one of the most important food crops in sub-Saharan Africa. Climate change, variability, and economic globalization threatens to disrupt rice value chains across the subcontinent, undermining their important role in economic development, food security, and poverty reduction. This paper maps existing research on the vulnerability of rice value chains, synthesizes the evidence and the risks posed by climate change and economic globalization, and discusses agriculture and rural development policies and their relevance for the vulnerability of rice value chains in sub-Saharan Africa.
This paper compares lessons learned from nine studies that explored institutional determinants of innovation towards sustainable intensification of West African agriculture. The studies investigated issues relating to crop, animal, and resources management in Benin, Ghana, and Mali.The studies showed that political ambitions to foster institutional change were often high (restoring the Beninese cotton sector and protecting Ghanaian farmers against fluctuating cocoa prices) and that the institutional change achieved was often remarkable.
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.
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.
Given the diversity and context-specificity of innovation systems approaches, in March 2007 the World Bank organized a workshop in which about 80 experts (representing donor agencies, development and related agencies, academia, and the World Bank) took stock of recent experiences with innovation systems in agriculture and reconsidered strategies for their future development. This paper summarizes the workshop findings and uses them to develop and discuss key issues in applying the innovation systems concept. The workshop’s recommendations, including next steps for the wider
This study assessed intermediate results of an investment intended to support climate change adaptation and resilience-building among farmers’ cooperatives in Rwanda. The assessment was based on a purposive sampling survey of farmers’ perspectives conducted in sites in 10 programme intervention districts of the country’s 30 districts.