This paper, presented at the 12th European IFSA Symposium (Workshop: "Generating spaces for innovation in agricultural and rural development") in 2016, aims to summarise the main features of the AgriSpin project. The project is being financed by the Horizon 2020 research program of the European Commission aiming at contributing to system-oriented innovation research in agriculture and as complementary to the policy instrument EIP AGRI. The idea behind EIP AGRI is that innovation emerges from interaction between stakeholders.
Multi-actors networks are increasingly used by farmers to link between them and to be interactively connected with other partners, such as advisory organizations, local governments, universities, and non-farm organizations. Given the importance assigned to the agricultural innovation by EU resorting to the networking between the research chain actors and the farmers, a strong focus on enhancing the creation of learning and innovation networks is expected.
The present case study investigated a policy-induced agricultural innovation network in Brandenburg.
This brief explores the definition of Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (AKIS) and the inventory of AKIS in Europe.
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.
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).
The IPMS project proposes to ‘contribute to improved agricultural productivity and production through market-oriented agricultural development, as a means for achieving improved and sustainable livelihoods for the rural population’ in Ethiopia. To accomplish this goal the project supports development and (action) research on innovative technologies, processes and institutional arrangements in three focus areas i.e.