Over the past decades, Brazilian agriculture has played an important role in the international market, in response to growing global demand for products, services and food security. This achievement was in a large extent powered by the ability to generate knowledge and the actions promoted by science and technology institutes.
This paper considers how farmers engage with, utilise and share knowledge through a focus on the Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) initiative in the UK. In exploring the importance of social contexts and social relations to these practices, the paper brings together understandings of knowledge with those from the literature on good farming to consider how different knowledges gain credibility, salience and legitimacy in different contexts.
In direct agri-food chains (DAFCs), farmers and consumers are brought together with the aim of shortening, localizing and synergizing an agri-food chain. As food moves from the farm to the fork, all the economic activities are performed by farmers/producers or consumers, and none intermediary is required to handle an agri-food product before it is consumed. Any DAFC form provide a sort of liminal space for social learning and for local lay knowledge exchange, through face-to-face interactions.
This brief illustrates the different forms of knowledge, and the ways to create and manage it.
Humanity is faced with the challenge of ensuring food security for all, while respecting the earth’s ecological boundaries. Organic agriculture makes a valuable contribution here. In Africa, certified organic farming is limited to just 0.2 percent of agricultural land – compared to all other continents, the smallest share worldwide. The potential for expanding organic agriculture is great, because it is economically viable in the long term, preserves human, animal and environmental health and conserves soil resources.
The two strategic documents for the future of Europe post 2020 (Green Deal) and agriculture in Europe (From Farm To Fork) recognize the important role of knowledge and innovation systems in accelerating change towards food sustainability. Researchers and advisors, together with the other actors of the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System, have the mandate to cooperate more closely to support all on this transition path. This includes stronger and more structured networking, increased information sharing and using digital tools to this effect.
This research is dedicated to illuminating the relationship between knowledge and innovation within agrifood supply chains (ASCs) – although insightful and informative – is marked by conceptual and methodological issues that restrict our ability to understand the ways knowledge affects innovation and vice versa. In this work, adopting a systems approach to ASCs and synthesizing literature from different fields of study, we discuss the metaphors that guide research in this area, and we propose an alternative conceptualization of ASCs
The current study examined the extent of knowledge concerning agricultural innovation systems amongst researchers, extension agents, farmers, input dealers, and marketers, while determining their attitude towards collaborating with agricultural innovation systems. Through using a simple random sampling technique; researchers, extension agents, farmers, input dealers, and marketers were selected as the study population.
Lesotho is one of the poorest countries in Southern Africa, and has one of the highest income inequality in the world. Home to about 2 million people, Lesotho is surrounded by South Africa, the second largest and most industrialized economy in Africa. Lesotho generates income mainly by exporting textiles, water, and diamonds, and is a member of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the Common Monetary Area (CMA). The national currency, the loti, is pegged to the South African rand.
Despite myriad challenges, Kenya has emerged in recent years as one of Africa’s frontier economies, with headline growth in the most recent decade propelling the country toward middle-income status. Less well understood is how risk dynamics associated with production, markets, and policy adversely impact sector performance, in terms of both influencing ex ante decision making among farmers, traders, and other sector stakeholders and causing ex post losses to crops, livestock, and incomes - destabilizing livelihoods and jeopardizing the country’s food security.