This paper is an attempt to take stock of the authors' work. In Section 2, the authors reflect upon the emergence and fairly rapid diffusion of the concept ‘national system of innovation’ as well as related concepts. In Section 3, they describe how the Aalborg-version of the concept evolved by a combination of ideas that moved from production structure towards including all elements and relationships contributing to innovation and competence building.
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.
El presente artículo analiza la forma como se desarrolla el cambio en los campos organizacionales a partir del emprendimiento institucional en el caso de la industria cafetera colombiana desde una perspectiva teórico-conceptual.
Climate forecasts have shown potential for improving resilience of African agriculture to climate shocks, but uncertainty remains about how farmers would use such information in crop management decisions and whether doing so would benefit them. This article presents results from participatory research with farmers from two agro-ecological zones of Senegal, West Africa. Based on simulation exercises, the introduction of seasonal and dekadal forecasts induced changes in farmers’ practices in almost 75% of the cases.
This book examines how agricultural innovation arises in four African countries – Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda – through the lens of agribusiness, public policies, and specific value chains for food staples, high value products, and livestock. Determinants of innovation are not viewed individually but within the context of a complex agricultural innovation system involving many actors and interactions.
The purpose of this paper is to map some elements that can contribute to an IFAD strategy to stimulate and support pro-poor innovations. It is an initial or exploratory document that hopefully will add to an ongoing and necessary debate, and is not intended as a final position paper. The document is organized as follows.
Le renforcement des capacités est maintenant d’une actualité brûlante en Afrique. Avec d’autres bailleurs de fonds, la banque recherche des moyens appropriés de collaborer avec les gouvernements africains pour les rendre mieux à même de mettre en oeuvre des programmes de développement sur tout le continent. Étant donné le caractère rural de la plupart des économies africaines et la concentration de pauvres dans les zones rurales, il est urgent de renforcer les capacités pour promouvoir le développement agricole.
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.
This article explored patterns of farming system diversity through the classification of 70 smallholder farm households in two districts (Savelugu-Nanton and Tolon-Kumbungu) of Ghana’s Northern Region. Based on 2013 survey data, the typology was constructed using the multivariate statistical techniques of principal component analysis and cluster analysis.
Many smallholder farmers in developing countries grow multiple crop species on their farms, maintaining de facto crop diversity. Rarely do agricultural development strategies consider this crop diversity as an entry point for fostering agricultural innovation. This paper presents a case study, from an agricultural research-for-development project in northern Ghana, which examines the relationship between crop diversity and self-consumption of food crops, and cash income from crops sold by smallholder farmers in the target areas.