As social and ecological problems escalate, the role of collective capacity and knowledge is becoming more critical in reaching solutions. This capacity and knowledge are dispersed among diverse stakeholder organizations. Thus, organizations in the private, public and civil society sectors are experiencing pressure to address these complex challenges through collaborative action in the form of multi-stakeholder partnerships.
There has been an increasing interest in science, technology and innovation policy studies in the topic of policy mixes. While earlier studies conceptualised policy mixes mainly in terms of combinations of instruments to support innovation, more recent literature extends the focus to how policy mixes can foster sustainability transitions.
Latin America has historically been a vanguard of agroecology. In Nicaragua, an agroecological transition is occurring, with three decades of building a groundswell based on the farmer-to-farmer movement and the recent institutionalization of agroecology in national law. Yet, problems remain with agroecology’s diffusion. We introduce the Technological Innovation Systems approach to examine systemic barriers to the agroecological transition and cycles of blockages caused by barriers’ interactions.
El presente artículo es el resultado de una investigación que se realizó en el año 2019 con 24 actores del sector público, sector científico tecnológico y sector productivo que han participado del Sistema Nicaragüense de Investigación e Innovación Agropecuaria SNIA a partir de su instalación en el año 2015 sobre las percepción actual con relación a lo actuado y estado del conocimiento durante el período 2015 – 2018 y las principales valoraciones, expectativas, perspectivas y prioridades del mismo, para el período 2019 – 2021.
Rapid climatic and socio-economic changes challenge current agricultural R&D capacity. The necessary quantum leap in knowledge generation should build on the innovation capacity of farmers themselves. A novel citizen science methodology, triadic comparisons of technologies or tricot, was implemented in pilot studies in India, East Africa, and Central America. The methodology involves distributing a pool of agricultural technologies in different combinations of three to individual farmers who observe these technologies under farm conditions and compare their performance.
This article presents programmatic lessons on scaling up research for development innovations that were implemented through the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF). Co-funded by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) and Global Affairs Canada (GAC), CIFSRF was a nine-year, two-phased program (2009–2018) that supported applied research to develop, test and scale proven food and nutrition security innovations. The outline of this paper is as follows.
This paper presents the results of an exploratory case-study analysis of a corn stover value-chain development process in two regions: Ontario (Canada) and Flanders (Belgium). Applying an integrated analytical framework and comparing the results with literature, we identified a number of barriers for novel value-chain development and state seven concrete actions that value-chain actors can take to overcome these barriers.
Situate within new institutionalism literature, this paper builds a complex system model of institutional analysis for adaptive governance. This model combines Young’s institutional environmental analysis method, elements of subsequent environmental governance projects models, and ideas of multiple institutional levels and drivers. By applying the model, policy instruments are identified that build agricultural producer livelihoods improving their adaptive capacity to respond to climate change and drought.
This study aims to describe and characterize the state of understanding about RSBs, and to fill knowledge gaps about their role and potential impact. The article will explore the historic and possible future trajectories of the RSBs at the country- and global-levels, by responding to three closely-related research questions: 1. What are the governance structures of the roundtables for sustainable beef? 2. What actions have been taken by, or are planned or likely to be taken by, the roundtables for sustainable beef, that are intended to enhance the sustainability of beef supply chains? 3.
Depuis toujours, l’agriculture repose sur la modification de la constitution génétique des plantes et des animaux. Grâce à la reproduction sélective, d’innombrables générations de cultures et d’animaux ont été sélectionnées en fonction de caractères jugés bénéfiques pour l’être humain.