Motivated by donor interest in innovative thinking on food security, the authors conducted an interdisciplinary, triangulation analysis of four divergent conceptual frameworks, each relevant to diagnosing food insecurity in developing countries. They found notable tensions as well as synergistic interactions between agroecology, agricultural innovation systems, social–ecological systems, and political ecology. Cross-framework interactions enhance our understanding of how sectoral and macro-economic development strategies impact on livelihoods, availability, and access.
Africa Lead II—the Feed the Future: Building Capacity for African Agricultural Transformation Program—aims to support and advance agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program. It will also contribute to the Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty by building the capacity of Champions—defined as men and women leaders in agriculture—to develop, lead, and manage the policies, structures and processes needed for the transformation process.
Africa Lead — Feed the Future’s Building Capacity for African Agricultural Transformation Program — supports the advancement of agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). Africa Lead also contributes to the Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty by building the capacity of Champions — i.e., men and women leaders in agriculture — and the institutions in which they operate to develop, lead, and manage the policies, structures, and processes needed for transformation.
Africa Lead II is a program dedicated to supporting and advancing agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program. It will also contribute to the Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty by building the capacity of Champions—defined as men and women leaders in agriculture—to develop, lead, and manage the policies, structures and processes needed for the transformation process.
Africa Lead—Feed the Future’s Building Capacity for African Agricultural Transformation Program—supports the advancement of agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). Simultaneously, Africa Lead contributes to the Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty by building the capacity of Champions—defined as men and women leaders in agriculture—and the institutions in which they operate to develop, lead, and manage the policies, structures and processes needed for the transformation process.
Africa Lead II is a program dedicated to supporting and advancing agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program. Simultaneously, it contributes to USAID’s Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty by building the capacity of Champions—defined as men and women leaders in agriculture—to develop, lead, and manage the policies, structures, and processes needed for the transformation process.
It is now widely acknowledged that biotechnology will have significant implications for development. While biotechnology’s potential for low income economies is still the subject of controversy, this paper argues that it is precisely in these countries that food and agriculture related biotechnology could efficiently contribute to the achievement of development objectives. To date, however, biotechnological advances have been realized predominantly in industrialized countries.
Innovations are fast changing the agricultural landscape driven by the increasing need to shift towards sustainable practices without sacrificing the productivity and profitability of farming. Innovations in technology, institutions, processes, and products have contributed to the growth of agriculture, globally and in developing countries including India and Africa, as observed in the cases of green revolution in cereals; and gene revolution in cotton.
To achieve food security for all, new resource policies for sustainable land and water use are needed. Land, water and energy need to be considered jointly in policies, not in isolation.
This paper was prepared to present at the Farmer First Revisited: 20 Years On conference at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK, December, 2007. Its focus is the challenge of strengthening agricultural innovation systems. The paper prefaces this discussion by reflecting on an apparent paradox. While agricultural innovation has never been better studied and understood, many of our ideas about innovation have failed to fundamentally change the institutional and policy setting of public and private investment intended to promote innovation for development.