In the context of an exponential rise in access to information in the last two decades, this special issue explores when and how information might be harnessed to improve governance and public service delivery in rural areas. Information is a critical component of government and citizens’ decision-making; therefore, improvements in its availability and reliability stand to benefit many dimensions of governance, including service delivery.
An analysis of the impact of simulation modelling in three diverse crop-livestock improvement projects in Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) reveals benefits across a range of aspects including identification of objectives, design and implementation of experimental programs, effectiveness of participatory research with smallholder farmers, implementation of system change and scaling-out of results. In planning change, farmers must consider complex interactions within both biophysical and socioeconomic aspects of their crop and animal production activities.
Esta investigación tiene como objetivo proponer un modelo de asociatividad en cadena productiva de las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas (MIPYMES) agroindustriales de cítricos en el norte del estado de Veracruz, México, con el propósito de explicar en qué medida los actores directos, los servicios de apoyo, el entorno, las relaciones y las políticas de gobierno determinan la asociatividad en la cadena productiva. La problemática que origina esta investigación es el desconocimiento del funcionamiento de las MIPYMES agroindustriales de cítricos en esta zona del país.
The objective of this piece of work is to explore innovation support in the case of Greece which is a particular one given the demise, on the one hand, of the country's public extension service in the early 1990's - and since then the absence of any kind of organized extension intervention in the country, and, on the other hand, of the agricultural cooperatives; thus the extremely weak and fragmented nature of the Greek Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System which seems to be rather unique in the European Union
Despite the key role of actor networks in progressing new sustainable technologies, there is a shortage of conceptual knowledge on how policy can help strengthen collaborative practices in such networks. The objective of this paper is to analyze the roles of such policies – so-called network management – throughout the entire technological development processes.
The question of how social enterprises foster social innovation in rural regions remains largely unexplored. In this paper, was developed the assumption that the embeddedness of social enterprises in rural communities and their ability to connect rural communities with supra-regional networks and decision makers are crucial preconditions for generating and fostering social innovation in the countryside.
This study identifies systemic problems in the New Zealand Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) in relation to the AIS capacity to enact a co-innovation approach, in which all relevant actors in the agricultural sector contribute to combined technological, social and institutional change. Systemic problems are factors that negatively influence the direction and speed of co-innovation and impede the development and functioning of innovation systems. The contribution in the paper is twofold.
In this paper the developments in agricultural research and education in the Netherlands will be presented in a historic context and the recent evolutions in agriculture-based research and knowledge systems are evaluated. It is concluded that societal needs, scientific discoveries, and public and private funding are the driving forces behind change. However, most important for the quality and vigour of knowledge centres is the ability to adapt to change
In this paper it is assessed the types of knowledge networks utilised by small-scale farmers in four case studies (located in Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom). We focus on knowledge acquired to inform three new activities being undertaken by study participants: agricultural production, subsidy access and regulatory compliance, and farm diversification (specifically agritourism).
This Economic and Sector Work paper, “Enhancing Agricultural Innovation: How to Go Beyond the Strengthening of Research Systems,” was initiated as a result of the international workshop, “Development of Research Systems to Support the Changing Agricultural Sector,” organized by the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of the World Bank in June 2004 in Washington, DC.