This Guide to Evaluating Rural Extension has been developed by the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS). The purpose is to support those involved in extension evaluation to choose how to conduct more comprehensive, rigorous, credible and useful evaluations. The Guide supports readers to understand different types of evaluation, to make decisions on what is most appropriate for their circumstances, and to access further sources of theoretical and practical information.
The paper aims to identify barriers to the development of Learning and Innovation Networks for sustainable agriculture (LINSA). In such networks, social learning processes take place, and knowledge about sustainable agriculture is co-produced by connecting between the different frames and social worlds of the stakeholders with the help of boundary objects. Studying such processes at the interface between different knowledge spheres of research, policy and practice requires a specific methodology.
Accordingly to the authors It is beyond the scope of this chapter to empirically explore the determinants of the commercialization of agriculture and its impact on poverty; so instead, they will present and discuss some empirical evidence on topics that remain hotly debated regarding commercialization and poverty. In Sect. 12.2, it is investigated how smallholder farmers in northern Vietnam have been affected by the recent food price volatility with respect to their income and consumption levels, while in Sect.
There is renewed attention on the importance of advisory services and extension in rural development processes. This paper, based on the publication ‘Mobilizing the potential of rural and agricultural extension', focuses on five opportunities to mobilise the potential of extension and advisory services. The five areas are: (1) focusing on best-fit approaches; (2) embracing pluralism; (3) using participatory approaches; (4) developing capacity; and (5) ensuring long-term institutional support.
Though research on communication and innovation during the last decade brought better understanding on the innovation process, this has not influenced the underlying paradigm and practice of Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) in most countries. At the same time there have been few initiatives that tried to experiment with new ways of developing capacities for extension and innovation.
Bien que l’appui apporté aux communautés rurales en matière de renforcement de la vulgarisation et de conseil, ait fait l’objet de nombreux débats ces dernières années, l’on sait peu de choses sur la façon de renforcer les capacités nécessaires dans les services de vulgarisation et de conseil (SVC), et sur le rôle que ces services jouent dans le système d’innovation agricole (SIA).
Extension and advisory services (EAS) perform an important role in agricultural development and help reduce hunger and poverty. Development efforts are increasingly complicated because of challenges such as natural resource depletion and climate change. Agricultural development frameworks have moved from a linear to a more complex systems perspective. Many scholars today use the agricultural innovation systems (AIS) framework as a conceptual model.
From 4 June to 1 July 2012, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) hosted a moderated email conference on "Ensuring the full participation of family farmers in agricultural innovation systems: Key issues and case studies". It was a highly successful global dialogue, with a very stimulating discussion. About 560 people subscribed to the conference, of whom 114 people (20% of the total), from nearly 50 different countries, wrote at least one of the 242 messages that were posted.
This paper discusses issues related to support for capacity strengthening for agricultural research for development (ARD) by member countries of the European Initiative for Agricultural Research for Development. It summarises the findings of an analysis of the policies, programmes and projects in capacity strengthening for ARD of fourteen European countries. These policies, programmes and projects were previously examined in relation to a common set of criteria covering aspects of needs identification, design, implementation, assessment, documentation and sharing of information.
Agriculture is central to Ethiopian economy but its sustainable development faces enormous challenges. Low innovation capacity, low productivity, dwindling natural resources and climate change, small-scale subsistence farming, and low levels of market integration and value addition have all made agricultural development more complex. In spite of the decades of research and development efforts, the rate of growth for both crop and livestock productivity has remained low.