El presente artículo describe los resultados de diseminación participativa de semillas (DPS) en términos productivos, ambientales y socioeconómicos en Cuba y México. El concepto de diseminación participativa de semillas (DPS) surgió en Cuba a partir de la integración de las ferias de diversidad de semillas con la experimentación y diseminación de semillas por los campesinos. Una feria de diversidad de semillas es un método donde los fitomejoradores, productores y agentes extensionistas tienen acceso a la diversidad en uno o más cultivos.
El objetivo de la investigación fue analizar cómo se ha beneficiado el ecosistema agrícola del municipio con la introducción de diversidad. Se calcularon los índices de diversidad específica de Margalef y riqueza específica de Shannon-Weiner y se consideraron tres etapas: antes de FP, después de FP y puesta en acción del Programa de Innovación Agrícola Local (PIAL). Se realizó un levantamiento de especies y variedades en 17 fincas de productores del municipio La Palma, en las zonas donde ha intervenido el proyecto Fitomejoramiento Participativo (FP)
Este artículo presenta una propuesta de marco teórico, conceptual y operativo (MaTCo) diseñado para documentar las experiencias de dichos actores y las estrategias de innovación tecnológica implementadas en el Nodo de Innovación (HUB) Trópico Bajo de Chiapas. Dicho marco incluye indicadores para conocer los principios, metodologías y herramientas utilizadas por cada actor estudiado. Para ello fue necesario construir e implementar el MaTCo, desde una perspectiva socio-agronómica holística y aplicarlo a cuatro estudios de caso de actores que colaboran con el programa.
What are key characteristics of rural innovators? How are their experiences similar for women and men, and how are they different? To examine these questions, this study draw on individual interviews with 336 rural women and men known in their communities for trying out new things in agriculture. The data form part of 84 GENNOVATE community case studies from 19 countries. Building on study participants’ own reflections and experiences with innovation in their agricultural livelihoods, we combine variable-oriented analysis and analysis of specific individuals’ lived experience.
There is great untapped potential for farm mechanization to support rural development initiatives in low- and middle-income countries. As technology transfer of large machinery from high-income countries was ineffective during the 1980s and 90s, mechanization options were developed appropriate to resource poor farmers cultivating small and scattered plots. More recently, projects that aim to increase the adoption of farm machinery have tended to target service providers rather than individual farmers.
This book contains a collection of papers that discuss the experience of an Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) capacity building program in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The program was the AusAID-funded Agricultural Research and Development Support Facility (ARDSF), which ran for fi ve years from 2007 to 2012, and which sought to improve the delivery of services by agricultural research organisations to smallholder farmers.
This paper sets out to explore the nature of new organisational and institutional vehicles for managing innovation in order to put research into use for social gain. It has reviewed four classes of such vehicles found in South Asia.
This paper sets out an analytical framework for doing research on the question of how to use agricultural research for innovation and impact. Its focus is the Research Into Use (RIU) Programme sponsored by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). This is one example of a new type of international development programme that seeks to find better ways of using research for developmental purposes.
The question of how agricultural research can best be used for developmental purposes is a topic of some debate in developmental circles. The idea that this is simply a question of better transfer of ideas from research to farmers has been largely discredited. Agricultural innovation is a process that takes a multitude of different forms, and, within this process, agricultural research and expertise are mobilised at different points in time for different purposes. This paper uses two key analytical principles in order to find how research is actually put into use.
This paper reflects on the experience of the Research Into Use (RIU) projects in Asia. It reconfirms much of what has been known for many years about the way innovation takes place and finds that many of the shortcomings of RIU in Asia were precisely because lessons from previous research on agricultural innovation were “not put into use” in the programme’s implementation. However, the experience provides three important lessons for donors and governments to make use of agricultural research: (i) Promoting research into use requires enabling innovation.