A challenge for researchers and other developers of new technologies in agriculture is to find ways of communicating their results and recommendations. This challenge is particularly acute in regions in which farmers have limited access to education and where illiteracy is widespread, such as in the rural areas of Mali. One approach that shows potential, yet remains largely unused by extension services, is the dissemination of educational video on mobile phones with video and Bluetooth technology, which are widespread in the region.
Dairy farmers in the northern regions of New Zealand expressed widespread dissatisfaction with the performance and persistence of their pastures following drought conditions in 2007/08. Farmers were becoming disillusioned with the practice of renewing pasture as a means to introduce modern perennial ryegrass cultivars in their paddocks. This paper describes the formation and operation of an innovation network, consisting of private and public sector actors, that was formed in 2010 to improve the quality and consistency of advice provided to farmers.
The private sector’s presence in agricultural advisory services worldwide has been on the increase for over three decades. This trend has also been observed in the Mantaro Valley (Peru), in a context of dairy family farming. The objective of the communication is to analyse the modalities of advisory services privatization and assess the consequences of this privatization for the farmers and their livestock systems. Data were collected through input suppliers, different types of advisers and producers interviews.
This document sets out how EU Research and Innovation (R&I) policy contributes to the major global challenge of ensuring food and nutrition security (FNS). It is a first step in the further development of a more coherent approach to European R&I which aims at mobilising resources and stakeholders to set out aligned R&I agendas in response to recent international political drivers such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the COP 21 climate commitments.
In this paper, presented at the 12th European IFSA Symposium (Workshop: "Generating spaces for innovation in agricultural and rural development") in 2016, the authors assess the integration of new entrants to small-scale farming into agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS), in four study sites located on Europe’s periphery (Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom).
More than 25 years after the first implementation of Farmer Field Schools (FFS), there is a rich corpus of evidence that participation in FFS improves farmers’ knowledge, skills, and competencies. On the other hand, several studies converge to show that FFS, by strengthening group action, have the potential to build-up social capital among participants and, thereafter, within local communities.
The Establishment of the Rahad Scheme in Eastern Sudan in the 1970s established an agricultural innovation system where formal actors such as extension, research, finance institutions and informal actors such as agro pastoral organizations are networking to provide better livelihoods within the irrigated scheme area. This investigation focuses on the roles and interactions of agro pastoral organizations and finance institutions in relation to extension work in Rahad Scheme.
"Ici, ailleurs... la terre qui nous nourrit" suit l’itinéraire de Gavin, jeune maraîcher bio anglais qui travaille dans une ferme du sud de l’Angleterre. Confronté à la perte de ses terres agricoles, il prend conscience de la difficulté de trouver des terres pour développer des projets d’agriculture de proximité comme le sien. Il part alors à la rencontre d’autres fermiers européens qui ont eux aussi bataillé pour trouver des terres et les conserver dans la durée.