Grant funds specifically targeted to smallholder farmers to facilitate innovation are a promising agricultural policy instrument. They stimulate smallholders to experiment with improved practices, and to engage with research, extension and business development services providers. However, evidence on impact and effectiveness of these grants is scarce. Partly, because attribution of changes in practices and performance to the grant alone is challenging, and the grant is often invested in innovation processes that benefitted from other support in the past.
In this paper the authors present the diagnosis and re-design of farm systems as part of an innovation process involving farmers and scientists to improve the sustainability of family farms in south Uruguay. Although were selected farms with a large variation in resource endowment, they shared the main critical points of sustainability: low productivity and deteriorated soil quality.
Motivated by donor interest in innovative thinking on food security, the authors conducted an interdisciplinary, triangulation analysis of four divergent conceptual frameworks, each relevant to diagnosing food insecurity in developing countries. They found notable tensions as well as synergistic interactions between agroecology, agricultural innovation systems, social–ecological systems, and political ecology. Cross-framework interactions enhance our understanding of how sectoral and macro-economic development strategies impact on livelihoods, availability, and access.
Processes of designing for systemic innovation for sustainable development (SD) through the lens of three long-term case studies are reported. All case studies, which originated from the SLIM (Social Learning for the Integrated Management and Sustainable Use of Water at Catchment Scale) Project, funded within the EU Fifth Framework Program (2001–2004), constitute inquiry pathways that are explored using a critical incident approach.
According to transition science, system innovation requires experimentation and social learning to explore the potential of innovations for sustainable development. However, the transition science literature does not elaborate much on the learning processes involved. Senge's Field of Change provides a more detailed approach to the role of learning and action in innovation. We linked the Field of Change to transition management literature in order to explore social learning in an agricultural innovation experiment in the Netherlands called the ‘New Mixed Farm’.
The ultimate aim of this research is to contribute towards a viable theoretical framework of agro-based technology transfer. This study uses case study methodology involving an agro-based government research institution and six private firms in Malaysia. This research reveals that the development of new technology did not lead to technology transfer until business opportunity is properly recognised. The business opportunity must be recognised first; then, the process of technology transfer will follow.
The aim of the paper is to analyze the possibilities to improve the market capability of small farms in Latvia. Therefore the paper deals with the factors constraining development plans of small farm holders, the current possibilities for improving small farm market capability, the possible development strategies to choose, and proposals for the improvement of small farm market capability in Latvia.
The objective of this present study is to scrutinize the challenges in implementing PPP by examining the factors that hinder the successful adoption of PPP in Malaysia. A questionnaire survey was used to elicit the perceptions of the public and private sectors concerning the constraints of PPP implementation in Malaysia. A total of 122 usable responses were obtained.
Climate forecasts have shown potential for improving resilience of African agriculture to climate shocks, but uncertainty remains about how farmers would use such information in crop management decisions and whether doing so would benefit them. This article presents results from participatory research with farmers from two agro-ecological zones of Senegal, West Africa. Based on simulation exercises, the introduction of seasonal and dekadal forecasts induced changes in farmers’ practices in almost 75% of the cases.
This paper compares lessons learned from nine studies that explored institutional determinants of innovation towards sustainable intensification of West African agriculture. The studies investigated issues relating to crop, animal, and resources management in Benin, Ghana, and Mali.The studies showed that political ambitions to foster institutional change were often high (restoring the Beninese cotton sector and protecting Ghanaian farmers against fluctuating cocoa prices) and that the institutional change achieved was often remarkable.