The focus of this paper is on how the institutional arrangements within the on-farm sector of the New Zealand dairy industry influence industry participants and encourage them to be innovative, in the context of industry productivity goals. The authors will present and discuss an approach to policy systems analysis that facilitates shared understanding between system participants and enables strategies for change to be identified.

In this paper the authors provide climate smart agriculture (CSA) planners and implementers at all levels with a generic framework for evaluating and prioritising potential interventions. This entails an iterative process of mapping out recommendation domains, assessing adoption potential and estimating impacts. Through examples, related to livestock production in sub-Saharan Africa, they demonstrate each of the steps and how they are interlinked. The framework is applicable in many different forms, scales and settings.

This article explored patterns of farming system diversity through the classification of 70 smallholder farm households in two districts (Savelugu-Nanton and Tolon-Kumbungu) of Ghana’s Northern Region. Based on 2013 survey data, the typology was constructed using the multivariate statistical techniques of principal component analysis and cluster analysis.

The Tanga Dairy Platform, created in 2008, is an informal forum of different stakeholders involved in the dairy industry of Tanzania’s Northeastern Tanga region. The platform’s objective is to exchange knowledge and develop joint actions to common problems. Six years on, it is a sustainable example of a commodity association addressing the joint problems of the region’s dairy industry.

This paper investigates Innovation Systems Concepts and Principles starting with an historical perspective. Then it analyzes their application to Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) and makes a comparison between the traditional Research and Development Systems Approaches and the Innovation Systems Approach. 

This study examines the role of public–private partnerships in international agricultural research. It is intended to provide policymakers, researchers, and business decisionmakers with an understanding of how such partnerships operate, how they promote the exchange of knowledge and technology, and how they contribute to poverty reduction.

This paper outlines key areas of intervention that are identified as the core of FAO's strategy on strengthening Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) across multiple areas of work (e.g. research and extension, agroecology, biotechnology, green jobs, resourcing etc.) for achieving sustainable rural development.

Processes of designing for systemic innovation for sustainable development (SD) through the lens of three long-term case studies are reported. All case studies, which originated from the SLIM (Social Learning for the Integrated Management and Sustainable Use of Water at Catchment Scale) Project, funded within the EU Fifth Framework Program (2001–2004), constitute inquiry pathways that are explored using a critical incident approach.

Land and property rights, migration, and citizenship are complex issues that cut across all social, economic, and political spheres of West Africa. This paper provides an overarching scoping of the most pressing contemporary issues related to land, migration, and citizenship, including how they intersect in various contexts and locations in West Africa. The way issues are analytically framed captures structural challenges and sets them against the regional and global meta-trends of which policy makers and practitioners should be aware for conflict-sensitive planning.

This presentation was given for the SEARCA Forum-workshop on Platforms, Rural Advisory Services, and Knowledge Management: Towards Inclusive and Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development, Los Banos, 17-19 May 2016. It introduced power asymmetries, how to empower members in innovation platforms, conflict management, negotiation and trust.