This book represents the proceedings of the FAO international technical conference dedicated to Agricultural Biotechnologies in Developing Countries (ABDC-10) that took place in Guadalajara, Mexico on 1-4 March 2010. A major objective of the conference was to take stock of the application of biotechnologies across the different food and agricultural sectors in developing countries, in order to learn from the past and to identify options for the future to face the challenges of food insecurity, climate change and natural resource degradation.
This report provides a synthesis of all findings and information generated through a “stocktaking” process that involved a desk study of Prolinnova documents and evaluation reports, a questionnaire to 40 staff members of international organizations in agricultural research and development (ARD), self-assessment by the Country Platforms (CPs) and backstopping visits to five CPs. In 2014, the Prolinnova network saw a need to re-strategise in a changing context, and started this process by reviewing the activities it had undertaken and assessing its own functioning.
In the 90’s first steps were taken in Cuba to strengthen family farming. A participatory seeds breeding, multiplication and diffusion project started, a challenge to Cuban scientists, not used to involve farmers in the decision making process and recognizing them as equal partners. This project further evolved to become the Local Agricultural Innovation Programme, Spanish acronym PIAL (Programa de Innovación Agropecuaria Local).
This study identifies entry points for innovation for sustainable intensification of agricultural systems. An agricultural innovation systems approach is used to provide a holistic image of (relations between) constraints faced by different stakeholder groups, the dimensions and causes of these constraints, and intervention levels, timeframes and types of innovations needed. The authors aim at showing that constraints for sustainable intensification of agricultural systems are mainly of economic and institutional nature.
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.
Presented at the ‘Building Livelihoods Resilience in a Changing Climate’ conference, Kuala Lumpur, 3-5th March 2011, this paper focuses on the Local Adaptive Capacity framework (LAC), developed under the Africa Climate Change Alliance Project (ACCRA), as an innovative initiative that attempts to move towards a better understanding of its core features through isolating five characteristics of adaptive capacity. Demonstrated through findings from field research across three African countries (Ethiopia, Mozambique and Uganda), this paper argues that frameworks for understanding and supporting
This evaluation examined the support the European Commission’s DG for Development and International Cooperation (DEVCO) provided to Research and Innovation (R&I) in partner countries during the last EU budget period (2007-2013). The objectives of the evaluation were to provide an overall judgment on the extent to which the EU development co-operation policy has adopted a strategic approach to support R&I and whether the approach was appropriate to enhance capacity to reach development objectives.
This flyer summarizes the key-findings from the e-conference (19 April-13 May 2016) and the international symposium (21 June 2016) both organized by the Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP) and supported by the United States in the framework of the USA-Brazil agreement to promote, via TAP, the implementation of the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. The agreement pays particular attention to innovation system for food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture.
This document sets out how EU Research and Innovation (R&I) policy contributes to the major global challenge of ensuring food and nutrition security (FNS). It is a first step in the further development of a more coherent approach to European R&I which aims at mobilising resources and stakeholders to set out aligned R&I agendas in response to recent international political drivers such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the COP 21 climate commitments.
Little is known about effective ways to operationalize agricultural innovation processes. The authors of this article use the MasAgro program in Mexico (which aims to increase maize and wheat productivity, profitability and sustainability), and the experiences of middle level ‘hub managers’, to understand how innovation processes occur in heterogeneous and changing contexts. Their research shows how a program, that initially had a relatively narrow technology focus, evolved towards an innovation system approach.