Growing local and informal markets in Asia and Africa provide both challenges and opportunities for small holders. In developing countries, market failures often lead to suboptimal performance of the value chains and limited and inequitable participation of the poor. In recent years, innovation platforms have been promoted as mechanisms to stimulate and support multistakeholder collaboration in the context of research for development. They are recognized as having the potential to link value chain actors, and enhance communication and collaboration to overcome market failures.
The presentation was given in January 2009 and introduced why a new approach for livestock development for poverty alleviation was desirable, innovation, innovation systems and value chains, building of innovation platforms, learning-oriented monitoring and evaluation, and scaling up and out.
Ethiopia has a diverse agro-ecology and sufficient surface and ground water resources, suitable for growing various temperate and tropical fruits. Although various tropical and temperate fruits are grown in the lowland/midland and highland agro-ecologies, the area coverage is very limited. For example, banana export increased from less than 5,000 tons in 1961 to 60,000 tons in 1972, but in 2003 declined to about 1,300 tons worth less than USD 350,000.
Ethiopian needs to achieve accelerated agricultural development along a sustainable commercialization path to alleviate poverty and ensure overall national development. In this regard, sustainable commercial of smallholder dairying provides a viable and growing opportunity; with deliberate, appropriate and sustained policy support. A recent empirical analysis concludes however, that Ethiopian smallholder dairy sub-sector has not been able to take-off despite decades of development interventions.
À l’occasion de l’année internationale des coopératives, le modèle coopératif est-il trop ou pas assez glorifié ? En pointant le rôle important des coopératives pour le développement social, ses valeurs de solidarité et d’autonomie, l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies a décidé de mettre cette forme de mutualisation à l’honneur en 2012. Mais quels critères permettent de classer les coopératives au-dessus d’autres formes associatives ? Et les manières d’élaborer et de concevoir les coopératives sont-elles identiques au Sud et au Nord ?
En matière de semences, on oppose souvent un modèle orienté vers le business à un modèle orienté vers l’agriculture paysanne. Ces deux modèles ont des implications socio-économiques différentes, aussi bien en termes d’emplois, que d’autonomie des agriculteurs ou de biodiversité. Les agricultures paysannes des pays du Sud ont-elles le poids et l’influence politique nécessaires pour faire prévaloir leurs modèles semenciers ? C’est la question que nous explorons dans ce dossier.
Les partisans de la souveraineté alimentaire veulent développer les agricultures locales, tandis que les avocats de la libéralisation vantent les bienfaits d’un approvisionnement à moindre coût sur les marchés. Les premiers pensent que les Etats doivent définir leur politique agricole pour répondre aux besoins de leurs populations, les seconds préfèrent le concept de « sécurité alimentaire », affirmant qu’il reconnaît aussi à chaque citoyen le droit de se nourrir à sa faim. Le combat pour la souveraineté a du mal à s’imposer dans l’arène politique.
Social structure, especially in the form of social networks, affects the adoption of agricultural technologies. In light of an increasing focus on new demand-driven agricultural extension approaches that leverage social networks as an opportunity, too little is known about (a) which network characteristics matter? and (b) how do specific network characteristics matter? This paper investigates the impact of social networks in relation to smallholder dairy production technology adoption in Ethiopia.
The New Extensionist is a global view of extension and advisory services (EAS) that reinvents and clearly articulates the role of EAS in the rapidly-changing rural context. It argues for an expanded role for EAS within agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and development of new capacities at different levels to play this role.
The Policy Compendium for Rural Advisory Services (RAS) is a tool that contributes to filling the gap between the rural advisory services (RAS) policy environment and RAS efforts in the field. It helps direct decisions and facilitate successful policy processes and outcomes in extension and advisory services by making knowledge accessible, fostering synergies and promoting policy processes to improve RAS and rural development. It has two purposes.