This paper, using Thailand as a case study, aims at understanding the national innovation system (NIS) in developing countries which are less successful in technological catching-up. In contrast to developed countries, the development level of Thailand’s NIS does not link to its economic structural development level. As Thailand moves from agricultural to an increasingly industrial economy, its NIS remains weak and fragmented. The mismatch between the two affected Thailand’s competitiveness and partially contributed to the recent economic crisis.
Multi-actors networks are increasingly used by farmers to link between them and to be interactively connected with other partners, such as advisory organizations, local governments, universities, and non-farm organizations. Given the importance assigned to the agricultural innovation by EU resorting to the networking between the research chain actors and the farmers, a strong focus on enhancing the creation of learning and innovation networks is expected.
This paper identifies market failures that limit agricultural R&D for Africa and other resource-poor environments, and proposes a way to complement existing institutions with cash prizes for the dissemination of successful new technologies adopted by low-income farmers. The proposed prize institution would use agronomic experiments and farm surveys to document the value of innovations after their initial diffusion, and offer payments in proportion to estimated social benefits in target regions.
This report has the aim of contributing to the PRO AKIS overall goal of exploring and identifying the possibilities, conditions and requirements of rural networks to enhance the farmers’ ability to create, test, implement and evaluate innovation in cooperation with other actors.In particular, the report presents two cases: the Small Fruit Cluster (SFC) and the Drosophila Suzukii Monitoring (DSM) network. The SFC is a nationwide, multi-actor network composed of several actors, interacting in the small fruit sector in Portugal.
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 policy brief consolidates lessons learned from an in-depth literature review on small-scale farmer (SSF) innovation systems and a two-day expert consultation on the same topic, hosted in Geneva by Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in May 2015. This review draws together published literature on the evolution of the concept, how on-farm innovation systems function in practice, and the roles of outside actors in supporting them.
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.
The paper explores the implications of rural livelihood diversity for agricultural innovation policies. It summarises literature on the nature of rural poverty, with particular emphasis on the relative roles of farm and non-farm income. It also reviews the various roles, direct and indirect, that agricultural innovation can play in rural poverty reduction. Finally, it uses an agricultural knowledge and information systems (AKIS) perspective to argue for a differentiated approach to targeting agricultural innovations, based on an analysis of rural assets.
The purpose of this issues paper is to provide an overview of the issues, numbers, disputes, and approaches so that contributors to SOW11 can share a common framework and consider how the innovations they describe fit into the larger international discourse. The paper is structured as follows: • Section 2 describes diverse perspectives on food security that emphasize global supply chains to feed middle-class populations in cities; smallholder farmers who still supply much of the world; and smallholder farmers who are relatively disengaged in commercial markets.
This paper addresses questions over the function and institutional arrangements of climate finance from an innovation systems perspective. It examines the barriers that prevent developing countries from transitioning to low-carbon and climate-resilient economies, and the interventions necessary to overcome those barriers. It finds that the barriers to innovation and economic change are much more pervasive than a lack of incentives.