This paper analyzes the impact of participation in multi-stakeholder platforms (Plataformas) aimed at linking smallholder potato farmers to the market in the mountain region of Ecuador. It describes and evaluates the Plataformas’ program to determine whether it has been successful in linking farmers to higher-value markets and the effects that such connections have brought, particularly with regard to farmers’ welfare and to the environment. The analysis is run comparing a set of different and carefully constructed control groups to beneficiaries and using various specifications.
Agricultural policy formulation in Sub Saharan Africa has been dominated by research initiatives that alienated other farmers and stakeholders. The Sub Saharan Africa Challenge Programme (SSA CP) seeks to use multi-stakeholder partnerships as an institutional innovation for agricultural policy formulation and development. This paper uses some experiences from the SSA CP to discuss the design principles for an effective partnership that can deliver relevant agricultural policies.
This paper assesses why participation in markets for small ruminants is relatively low in northern Ghana by analysing the technical and institutional constraints to innovation in smallholder small ruminant production and marketing in Lawra and Nadowli Districts. It is argued in this paper that for the majority of smallholders, market production, which requires high levels of external inputs or intensification of resource use, is not a viable option.
The purpose of this article is to investigate effective reformism: strategies that innovation networks deploy to create changes in their environment in order to establish a more conducive context for the realization and durable embedding of their innovation projects. Using a case study approach, effective reformism efforts are analyzed in a technological innovation trajectory related to the implementation of a new poultry husbandry system and an organizational innovation trajectory concerning new ways of co-operation among individual farms to establish economies of scale.
The aim of this study was to explore the interactions that exist among agricultural stakeholders in the southwestern highlands of Uganda as a way of identifying opportunities and gaps for operation of Innovation Platforms (IPs) under the proof of concept of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) research project.
This paper reviews the NIS literature chronologically, showing how this shift in emphasis has diminished somewhat the importance of both institutions, particularly governments, and the political processes of institutional capacity building.
In this paper, presented at the 8th European IFSA Symposium ( Workshop 6: "Change in knowledge systems and extension services: Role of the new actors") in 2008, the authors discuss a conceptual framework that understands innovation processes as the outcome of collaborative networks where information is exchanged and learning processes happen. They argue that technical and economic factors used to analyse drivers and barriers alone are not sufficient to understand innovation processes.
A challenge for researchers and other developers of new technologies in agriculture is to find ways of communicating their results and recommendations. This challenge is particularly acute in regions in which farmers have limited access to education and where illiteracy is widespread, such as in the rural areas of Mali. One approach that shows potential, yet remains largely unused by extension services, is the dissemination of educational video on mobile phones with video and Bluetooth technology, which are widespread in the region.
Dairy farmers in the northern regions of New Zealand expressed widespread dissatisfaction with the performance and persistence of their pastures following drought conditions in 2007/08. Farmers were becoming disillusioned with the practice of renewing pasture as a means to introduce modern perennial ryegrass cultivars in their paddocks. This paper describes the formation and operation of an innovation network, consisting of private and public sector actors, that was formed in 2010 to improve the quality and consistency of advice provided to farmers.
The private sector’s presence in agricultural advisory services worldwide has been on the increase for over three decades. This trend has also been observed in the Mantaro Valley (Peru), in a context of dairy family farming. The objective of the communication is to analyse the modalities of advisory services privatization and assess the consequences of this privatization for the farmers and their livestock systems. Data were collected through input suppliers, different types of advisers and producers interviews.