ICA has developed this book, Innovation to achieve competitive, sustainable and inclusive agriculture with the purpose of offering member countries, governments, farmers and stakeholders in the continent an overview of this central issue for the agricultural sector. The document explains the importance of agricultural innovation and the way in which IICA has addressed and developed, based on the guidelines defined by the Heads of State and the Ministers of Agriculture of the Americas, the actions included in the strategic plan and the medium-term plans.
Innovation policies are considered the long-term strategy to overcome the present systemic crisis. But this crisis is questioning such policies, their presuppositions and institutional arrangements. This questioning includes the Triple Helix theory and its impact on research and innovation policies. The goal is to examine how this theory can respond to theoretical and practical challenges, how the theory needs to evolve in order to fit the present context.
In this paper, results from a study on the use of improved coffee production technology schemes among smallholder coffee producers in three prominent coffee producing regions in Honduras are presented. The impact of various schemes (trajectories) in which different agents influence the producers’ decision to use new technologies was analyzed. In particular, there are differences in the influence of a) private coffee buying organizations and b) government and public development agencies on the innovation behavior of coffee growers.
In this paper, we examine the effectiveness of e-tendering system for pigeon pea in Karnataka and explore stakeholders’ perceptions regarding online trading to better understand the challenges in implementation of this innovative agricultural marketing initiative. Rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides background on e-tendering process in Karnataka. Data and methodology are discussed in the third section, fourth section presents the results, and is followed by the section discussing the salient findings and lessons learnt.
The study describes the historic development of the Danish Agricultural Advisory Services (DAAS). This is the case of a national advisory system owned and managed by the farmer organizations and financed with public subsidies combined with farmer/user payments, gradually developed to full user payment. The links and relations between the empowerment of farmers and their organizations, their evolving roles in advisory systems, and the innovative financial mechanisms in extension, especially pull-mechanisms, are analyzed.
This special issue contains contributions from 42 authors representing 21 organizations and institutes around the world. Overall, the publication presents a number of innovations related to the key elements of climate risk management and resilience building in agriculture. The approaches, tools and methods are illustrated with case studies and examples from different parts of the world. While the innovations presented are not without certain limitations, any such limitations are identified and discussed, and recommendations are made for future research.
This is the proceedings of the international conference ‘Innovations in Organic Food System for Sustainable Production and Enhanced Ecosystem Services’. The proceedings are a compilation of peer-reviewed articles based on presentations of 18 speakers invited conference speakers and published as a Special Issue of the scientific journal ‘Sustainable Agriculture Research’ by the Canadian Centre of Science and Education.
This paper briefly analyse the genesis, development and change in public sector-led extension approaches in India showing its temporal pattern, emerging innovations in extension approaches and the way forward. It discusses decentralized, community based, pluralistic extension approaches and their opportunities as well as limitations in changing agricultural and natural resources scenario.
This paper has been prepared under the guidelines provided by the TAP Secretariat at the FAO, as a contribution to the G20 initiative TAP, which includes near 40 partners and is facilitated by FAO. Its purpose is to provide a Regional synthesis report on capacity needs assessment for agricultural innovation, with capacity gaps identified and analyzed, including recommendations to strengthen agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and draft policy recommendations to address the capacity gaps.
L'adoption des nouvelles technologies dans le secteur agricole marocain est devenue aujourd’hui une impérative nécessité. D’une part, pour suivre la tendance mondiale en matière d’innovation et rester compétitif, et d’autre part pour répondre à des enjeux purement agronomiques, économiques et environnementaux. L’objectif central de cet article est de s’interroger si le secteur agricole marocain dispose d’un environnement favorable pour l’introduction des innovations technologiques.