There is a broad consensus that farmers are not simply recipients of promoted techniques: rather, they are also an important source of agricultural innovations. They invent farm tools and equipment, develop new crop varieties, and add value to externally promoted technologies. When scouting, documenting and promoting such farmer-generated innovations, the thorny issue of intellectual property rights (IPRs) often emerges.
Following the food price crisis in 2008, African governments implemented policies aiming at crowding in investment in rice value chain upgrading to help domestic rice compete with imports. This study assess the state of rice value chain upgrading in West Africa by reviewing evidence on rice millers’ investment in semi-industrial and industrial milling technologies, contract farming and vertical integration during the post-crisis period 2009–2019. We find that upgrading is more dynamic in countries with high rice production and import bills and limited comparative advantage in demand.
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.
The Sourcebook is the outcome of joint planning, continued interest in gender and agriculture, and concerted efforts by the World Bank, FAO, and IFAD. The purpose of the Sourcebook is to act as a guide for practitioners and technical staff inaddressing gender issues and integrating gender-responsive actions in the design and implementation of agricultural projects and programs. It speaks not with gender specialists on how to improve their skills but rather reaches out to technical experts to guide them in thinking through how to integrate gender dimensions into their operations.
The study analyzes the current state of Agricultural Technical and Vocational Education and Training (ATVET) in Africa and presents its challenges and opportunities. A review of the ATVET in selected Sub-Saharan Africa countries shows that there are far too few training opportunities for young people and that often, the training offered does not match the needs of the private sector and of local administrations. ATVET trainings focus primarily on production skills and on producers themselves with
The 2021 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC 2021) highlights the remarkably high severity and numbers of people in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent in 55 countries/territories, driven by persistent conflict, pre-existing and COVID-19-related economic shocks, and weather extremes. The number identified in the 2021 edition is the highest in the report’s five-year existence. The report is produced by the Global Network against Food Crises (which includes WFP), an international alliance working to address the root causes of extreme hunger.
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.