This is a chapter of the book Innovation platforms for agricultural development edited by Iddo Dror, Jean-Joseph Cadilhon, Marc Schut, Michael Misiko and Shreya Maheshwari.

This book summarizes the achievements as well as some of the challenges faced while implementing integrated systems research to support the sustainable development of smallholder farming in the uplands of the Mekong region.

In this article it is analysed the results of applying a co-innovation approach to five research projects in the New Zealand primary sector. The projects varied in depth and breadth of stakeholder engagement, availability of ready-made solutions, and prevalence of interests and conflicts. The projects show how and why co-innovation approaches in some cases contributed to a shared understanding of complex problems. Our results confirm the context-specificity of co-innovation practices

Local banks, NGOs and public institutions worked closely to ensure that women could access loans, join associations and have their voices be heard in collective decision-making processes. It also allowed these women and their communities to make collective investments that would increase their production, stabilize and diversify their nutrition, and ultimately achieve a better life.

This study aimed to describe the situation of this local breed based on the perceptions and practices of the actors in the sector (including farmers, traders and service suppliers), and to draw perspectives for its future. From the interviews, the Baladi appeared adapted and more resistant to harsh conditions, especially to extreme warm temperatures, feed shortage periods, and some diseases, in particular foot-and-mouth disease.

Small-scale farmers' experimental innovations have not generally been considered for on-farm research trials as those in the traditional sector have been perceived as recipients, rather than originators, of technical knowledge and sustainable and viable practices. Yet there is abundant evidence throughout the tropics that small-scale farmers are adaptive and experimental problem solvers, and experts at devising innovative survival strategies. While literature on the topic is rich with accounts from Africa, Asia and Latin America, there is a general dearth of examples from the Caribbean.

The articles in the dossier present different approaches to supporting farmer-led research, ranging from partnerships between small-scale farmer organisations and research institutions, to alliances of farmer groups, nongovernmental organisations and researchers, to constellations in which farmer organisations directly contract researchers. The articles highlight some innovations that have emerged from these processes and – more important still – show new ways of organising research so that it strengthens innovative capacities at grassroots level.

This chapter starting presenting the current status of agricultural research systems in SSA at national and regional levels against a backdrop of key policy changes and progressive elaboration of agricultural knowledge frameworks registered in the last decade or so. The section argues for endogenous mechanisms to encourage sustainable funding of agricultural research in the region. Section 2 discusses key trends and some innovative approaches that are helping bridge the supply and demand mismatch in AAS.

The global impacts of the climate crisis are becoming ever clearer, and natural resources and ecosystems are being depleted. Despite some progress, hunger and poverty persist, and inequalities are deepening. The world is realizing that unsustainable high external inputs and resource-intensive industrialized systems pose a real danger of biodiversity loss, increased greenhouse gas emissions, shortages of healthy food, and the impoverishment of dispossessed peasants around the world.

The European Innovation Partnership for agricultural productivity and sustainability (EIP-AGRI), which can be perceived as a platform based on interaction among farmers, researchers, and advisors/extensionists, represents a useful tool for a better understanding of applied innovation processes.