Accurate and timely crop mapping is crucial for environment assessment, food security and agricultural production. However, for the areas with high landscape heterogeneity and frequent cloudy and rainy weather, the insufficient high-quality satellite images limit the accuracy of crop classification. The recently launched Chinese GF-6 wide field-of-view camera (WFV) with a revisit cycle of 4-day and spatial resolution of 16-meter shows great potential for agricultural monitoring.
The privatization of agricultural research and extension establishments worldwide has led to the development of a market for services designed to support agricultural innovation. However, due to market and systemic failures, both supply side and demand side parties in this market have experienced constraints in effecting transactions and establishing the necessary relationships to engage in demand-driven innovation processes.
This paper examines the role of postsecondary agricultural education and training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of the region’s agricultural innovation systems. Specifically, the paper looks at how AET in sub-Saharan Africa can contribute to agricultural development by strengthening innovative capacity, or the ability of individuals and organisations to introduce new products and processes that are socially or economically relevant, particularly with respect to smallholder farmers who represent the largest group of agricultural producers in the region.
The authors surveyed small-scale farmers in the Kenyan Rift Valley province (Narok and Nakuru districts) to describe constraints to, and changes in, livestock production and to assess the extent to which farmers have adopted new technologies promoted by extension services. In the arid areas of southern Narok, farmer's main constraints were drought and disease. Farmers in Nakuru district, situated in the fertile highlands of the Rift Valley, were also affected by disease but also lacked markets and capital.
En el presente documento se realiza un análisis de la situación de los principales clusters de Argentina y cómo estas estructuras asociativas pueden mejorar la generación de innovaciones y generar externalidades positivas para la comunidad. Lo anterior se realiza a través de un análisis de tipo descriptivo, abordando el objeto de investigación mediante el estudio de casos. Asimismo se aplicó un modelo de gestión de conocimiento con el fin de evaluar los efectos de los clusters en la innovación y la creación de conocimiento valioso.
The European small ruminants (i.e. sheep and goats) farming sector (ESRS) provides economic, social and environmental benefits to society, but is also one of the most vulnerable livestock sectors in Europe. This sector has diverse livestock species, breeds, production systems and products, which makes difficult to have a clear vision of its challenges through using conventional analyses. A multi-stakeholder and multi-step approach, including 90 surveys, was used to identify and assess the main challenges for the sustainability of the ESRS to prioritize actions.
The challenges faced by agricultural systems call for an advance in risk management (RM) assessments. This research identifies and discusses potential improvements to RM across 11 European Union (EU) farming systems (FS). The paper proposes a comprehensive, participatory approach that accounts for multi-stakeholder perspectives relying on 11 focus groups for brainstorming and gathering suggestions to improve RM.
Developing irrigation technology for a diversity of farmers with rapidly changing demands can be hard for designers, especially when the technology concerns smallholders in developing countries. Innovation networks supporting the adopted technology increasingly include both globalised players and very local actors, making innovation intermediaries capable of translating innovation issues for different actors increasingly indispensable.
Mission-oriented agricultural innovation systems (MAIS) are becoming more prevalent in view of tackling the challenges of agri-food systems transformation. In this perspective, we argue that the politics of MAIS requires more comprehensive and considerable attention in the field, given the contested and deeply normative nature of the direction of innovations in agri-food systems transformation. Literature from development studies, policy sciences, and transition studies is reviewed to inform the perspective.
AgriFoodTech start-ups are coming to be seen as relevant players in the debate around and reality of the transformation of food systems, especially in view of emerging or already-established novel technologies (such as Artificial Intelligence, Sensors, Precision Fermentation, Robotics, Nanotechnologies, Genomics) that constitute Agriculture 4.0 and Food 4.0. However, so far, there have only been limited studies of this phenomena, which are scattered across disciplines, with no comprehensive overview of the state of the art and outlook for future research.