While privatization of extension has received considerable attention with respect to implications for public and private good, less consideration has been given to structural and relational implications for knowledge sharing.
Graduate programs in agriculture and allied disciplines in Ethiopia are expected to make concrete contribution to market-oriented development of smallholder agriculture. This, among others, calls for realignment and engagement of the programs with smallholder farmers and, value chain, R&D and policy actors. No panacea exists, however, as to how to ensure effective linkages, and thereby responsiveness. Lessons from initiatives on the ground in the country and beyond is thus crucial to inform the development of appropriate policy and innovative strategy.
Ethiopian needs to achieve accelerated agricultural development along a sustainable commercialization path to alleviate poverty and ensure overall national development. In this regard, sustainable commercial of smallholder dairying provides a viable and growing opportunity; with deliberate, appropriate and sustained policy support. A recent empirical analysis concludes however, that Ethiopian smallholder dairy sub-sector has not been able to take-off despite decades of development interventions.
This paper outlines key areas of intervention that are identified as the core of FAO's strategy on strengthening Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) across multiple areas of work (e.g. research and extension, agroecology, biotechnology, green jobs, resourcing etc.) for achieving sustainable rural development.
This paper, presented at the 8th European IFSA Symposium ( Workshop 6: "Change in knowledge systems and extension services: Role of the new actors") in 2008, discusses the FutureDairy project, which is developing more productive forage and feeding systems and testing technical innovations such as robotic milking in Australian pasture based dairy systems.
Accountability pressure to demonstrate how research for development projects will bridge the ‘output - outcome gap’ and achieve impacts ‘at scale’ has increased. Consequently, efforts to develop ‘Theory of Change’ (ToC) and impact pathways that steer programs and projects to outcomes have grown within Australia’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) strategy. In response, the cross agency Food Systems Innovation (FSI) initiative piloted the use of ToC thinking within Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
In this paper its argued that when flexibly applied and adapted to capture dynamics typical in systems innovation projects, the Log Frame Approach (LFA) ( and logical frameworks have considerable utility to support evaluation for both learning and accountability, and for identifying and addressing institutional logics, which leads to system innovation.
This paper is an inquiry into the process of setting up a national, multi-stakeholder project collaboration aimed at stimulating the role of the private sector in the Australian agricultural extension and innovation systems.
Primary Innovation is a five year collaborative initiative demonstrating and evaluating co-innovation, a systemic approach to innovation addressing complex problems, in five ‘innovation projects’ (active case studies) in different agricultural industries. In defining the elements of co-innovation, Primary Innovation has emphasised nine principles which guide activity in the innovation projects.
This paper describes a process for stimulating this engagement to develop a shared understanding of systemic problems, challenge prevalent institutional logics, and identify individual and collective actions that change agents might undertake to stimulate system innovation. To achieve this the process included (i) multiple actors from the agricultural innovation systems, (ii) steps to prompt reflexivity to challenge underlying institutional logics, (iii) an iterative process of practical experimentation to challenge current practices, and (iv) actions to encourage generative collaboration.