Competing models of innovation informing agricultural extension, such as transfer of technology, participatory extension and technology development, and innovation systems have been proposed over the last decades. These approaches are often presented as antagonistic or even mutually exclusive. This article shows how practitioners in a rural innovation system draw on different aspects of all three models, while creating a distinct local practice and discourse. We revisit and deepen the critique of Vietnam’s “model” approach to upland rural development, voiced a decade ago in this journal.
This article adds to the literature about the impact of social networks on the adoption of modern seed technologies among smallholder farmers in developing countries. The analysis centers on the adoption of hybrid wheat and hybrid pearl millet in India. In the local context, both crops are cultivated mainly on a subsistence basis, and they provide examples of hybrid technologies at very different diffusion stages: while hybrid wheat was commercialized in India only in 2001, hybrid pearl millet was launched in 1965.
The global impacts of the climate crisis are becoming ever clearer, and natural resources and ecosystems are being depleted. Despite some progress, hunger and poverty persist, and inequalities are deepening. The world is realizing that unsustainable high external inputs and resource-intensive industrialized systems pose a real danger of biodiversity loss, increased greenhouse gas emissions, shortages of healthy food, and the impoverishment of dispossessed peasants around the world.
In the rapidly changing context of agri-food systems, extension and advisory services (EAS) are expected to provide new roles and services that go well beyond the traditional production-related technology transfer. Consequently, pluralistic EAS systems with diverse actors have emerged with diverse actors, including private and civil society organisations. These multiple EAS actors must adopt innovative entrepreneurship models if they are to act proactively and respond to the increasing diversity of farmers’ demands while staying independent and sustainable.
In recent decades, the confluence of different global and domestic drivers has led to progressive and unpredictable changes in the functioning and structure of agri-food markets worldwide.
ABSTRACT. In the last decades, a growing scholarship has outlined the crucial role of social networks as a source of resilience. However, with regard to the Global South, the role of social networks for the resilience of rural communities remains an under- researched and underconceptualized issue, because research remains scattered between different strands and has rarely been integrated from a resilience perspective.
The pursuit of sustainability in particular places and sectors often unravels at the edges. Efforts to tackle environmental problems in one place shift them somewhere else or are overwhelmed by external changes in drivers. Gains in energy efficiency of appliances used in houses are offset by greater total numbers or compensating changes in patterns of use. Analytical perspectives and practical initiatives, which treat production and consumption jointly, are needed to complement experiences and efforts with sector-, place-, product- and consumer-oriented approaches.
Inclusive business models dominate current development policy and practices aimed at addressing food and nutrition insecurity among smallholder farmers. Through inclusive agribusiness, smallholder food security is presumed to come from increased farm productivity (food availability) and income (food access). Based on recent research, the focus of impact assessments of inclusive business models has been limited to instrumental aspects, such as the number of farmers supported, the training provided, and immediate farm outcomes, namely revenue.
The Guide to Effective Collaborative Action is built on the foundation of 10 years' experience in transforming food and agricultural commodity systems by UNDP's Green Commodities Programme. It is broadening the application from support to commodity production to the transformation of food systems. The four building blocks of putting systems change into practice, integrated with backbone support and essential practices for stakeholder actions, provide a framework for Changing Systems through Collaborative Action.
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of International Earth Day on April 22 2020, UNDP launched a new way of helping farmers: Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration for Systemic Change: A New Approach to Strengthening Farmer Support Systems, a guidance note which encourages and guides governments to develop new partnerships, enable innovation and strengt