Development is the process of change and facilitation helps in accelerating this process through the change agents‘ or the extension service provider. While working with farmers, agri-traders and processors, facilitation refers to promote group learning, building consensus and enhancing participation in collective actions. A facilitator has multidimensional roles to play.
The privatization of agricultural advisory and extension services in many countries and the associated pluralism of service providers has renewed interest in farmers’ use of fee-for-service advisors. Understanding farmers’ use of advisory services is important, given the role such services are expected to play in helping farmers address critical environmental and sustainability challenges. This paper aims to identify factors associated with farmers’ use of fee-for service advisors and bring fresh conceptualization to this topic.
The creation of commercialization opportunities for smallholder farmers has taken primacy on the development agenda of many developing countries. Invariably, most of the smallholders are less productive than commercial farmers and continue to lag in commercialization. Apart from the various multifaceted challenges which smallholder farmers face, limited access to extension services stands as the underlying constraint to their sustainability.
Women play a key role in agriculture and food security, making up around 48 percent of the agricultural labour force in low-income countries. Despite this, their important contribution is hardly visible and largely unrecognized. Gender equality regards human rights but gender-based constraints in the sector cause also major inefficiencies in value chains, and are a key impediment for rural development, food security, and social and environmental sustainability. Moreover, the severe and multidimensional constraints faced by women hamper their productive potential and livelihoods.
The author shares her experience of participating in a training that was organized by the Tropical Agriculture Platform – Agricultural Innovation Systems (TAP-AIS) project, ‘Developing Capacities in Agricultural Innovation Systems: Scaling up the Tropical Agriculture Platform Framework’, implemented by FAO’s Research & Extension Unit, funded by the European Union as a component of the ‘Development Smart Innovation through Research in Agriculture (DeSIRA): Towards Climate-relevant Agricultural and Knowledge Innovation Systems’ initiative.
Conventional approaches to agricultural extension based on top–down technology transfer and information dissemination models are inadequate to help smallholder farmers tackle increasingly complex agroclimatic adversities. Innovative service delivery alternatives, such as field schools, exist but are mostly implemented in isolationistic silos with little effort to integrate them for cost reduction and greater technical effectiveness.
Este documento recoge los principales avances y logros de innovación de los más de ochocientos agricultores y agricultoras, “Héroes de la Alimentación”, y representantes institucionales, que participaron desde el año 2018 en el proyecto “Desarrollo de Capacidades para Sistemas de Innovación Agrícola en El Salvador” (CDAIS, por sus siglas en inglés).
La participación de los pequeños productores en procesos de investigación asociados a los sistemas productivos agrícolas ha sido difícil de lograr. Por esto el objeto de la presente investigación fue el de lograr la vinculación de pequeños productores de yuca (Manihot esculenta Crantz) a procesos de investigación en la región caribe de Colombia. Por lo anterior, se implementaron ensayos de campo en los que se empleó un método de investigación participativa a través de modelos integrados de producción.
The importance of extension services in helping smallholder farmers to address the many challenges of agricultural production cannot be over-emphasized. However, relatively few studies have been conducted that investigate how the capacities of agricultural extension agents can be built to more effectively assist smallholder farmers in managing climate risks and impacts. As climate change is a key threat to smallholder food production, addressing this issue is increasingly important.
Fairtrade certification has recently gained in importance for various export crops produced in developing countries. One of Fairtrade's main objectives is to improve the social conditions of smallholder farmers. Previous research showed that Fairtrade has positive effects on farmers' sales prices and incomes in many situations. However, more detailed analysis of the effects on food security and other dimensions of household living standard is rare.