African agriculture is currently at a crossroads, at which persistent food shortages are compounded by threats from climate change. But, as this book argues, Africa can feed itself in a generation and help contribute to global food security. To achieve this Africa has to define agriculture as a force in economic growth by: advancing scientific and technological research; investing in infrastructure; fostering higher technical training; and creating regional markets.
This report explores the role of rural networks in enhancing innovation processes, questioning the features of the agricultural/rural networks could enhance farmers’ ability to co-innovate in cooperation with other actors. The prospect of this investigation is also to provide interesting and significant experiences that constitute examples for the ‘European Innovation Partnership’ by increasing farmers’ capacities to create, test, implement and evaluate innovations in cooperation with other rural actors.
The report synthesises the research conducted under the PRO AKIS project for the topic "Designing, implementing and maintaining agricultural/rural networks to enhance farmers’ ability to innovate in cooperation with other rural actors".
Every year, farmers in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from unacceptable levels of crop loss as a result of plant health problems, threatening their food security, income and livelihoods. This working paper shares lessons from Plantwise, an initiative to improve smallholder farmers’ access to plant health services in Uganda so that they can improve their yields, increase their incomes and improve their food security and livelihoods. The working paper presents lessons from almost ten years of experiences in implementing plant clinics in Uganda.
La metodología presentada responde entonces a la formalización de los aprendizajes desarrollados en la animación y acompañamiento de proyectos locales de valorización de recursos territoriales. El trabajo con los actores locales, como resultado de puntos de partidas y trayectorias diferentes, con motivaciones, objetivos y estrategias propias a cada caso, nos permite considerar el carácter de único, de construido y de situado de cada proyecto local.
Esta tesis tuvo la finalidad de contribuir al diálogo de saberes en la primera fase del proyecto piloto de ciencia abierta y colaborativa para la adaptación al cambio climático en el Bosque Modelo Reventazón, para lo cual se realizó un análisis de situación basada en el marco de los recursos y enfoque de medios de vida, para luego identificar los saberes locales respetos a temas claves desde la percepción de los participantes de los diferentes grupos y luego sistematizar la información, caracterizar las lecciones aprendidas del intercambio de saberes locales sobre investigación y adaptación
La obra que nos complace presentar reúne un conjunto de estudios de caso y un análisis transversal de las políticas públicas para la agricultura familiar en once países latinoamericanos, complementados por un ensayo interpretativo acerca de las implicaciones para políticas públicas derivadas de los principales eventos internacionales del Año Internacional de la Agricultura Familiar en América Latina.
The first phase in the development of the Common Framework on Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation systems (CD for AIS) consisted of the review of the existing literature, building up a repository of relevant documentation on agricultural innovation in general and AIS and CD for AIS. This report summarizes this first phase. In particular, Section 1 covers this brief introduction. Sections two and three focus on the review of relevant literature, presenting the methodology used and the structure of the repository itself.
Social learning processes can be the basis of a method of agricultural innovation that involves expert and empirical knowledge. In this sense, the objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness and sustainability of an innovation process, understood as social learning, in a group of small farmers in the southern highlands of Peru. Innovative proposals and its permanence three years after the process finished were evaluated. It was observed that innovation processes generated are maintained over time; however, new innovations are not subsequently generated.
Over the years, CTA has contributed to building ACP capacity to understand innovation processes, strengthen the agricultural innovation system and embed innovation thinking in agricultural and rural development strategies. The CTA Top 20 Innovations project set out to prove that innovation is taking place in ACP agriculture and in the process has demonstrated that smallholder farmers are beneficiaries as well as partners in agricultural innovation.