BRAC is a global leader in creating large-scale opportunities for the poor. This chapter describes how small farmer innovations are being developed by BRACAgriculture and Food Security program. In collaboration with the Government and theInternational Agricultural Research Centers, the program aims to achieve food security and reduce hunger and malnutrition through increased environmentally sustainable agricultural production systems. The research focus is on cereal crops (rice andmaize), vegetables and oilseeds.
This chapter analyses the functioning of the Brazilian agricultural innovation system. It discusses the role of the different actors and describes governance mechanisms to define priorities and evaluate performance. It analyses trends in agricultural R&D expenditure and sources of funding, the role of intellectual property protection in fostering knowledge markets, and outlines mechanisms used to facilitate knowledge transfers, including collaboration at the national level and the adoption of innovation at the farm or firm level.
The Capacity Development Results Framework (CDRF or the Framework) is a powerful new approach to the design, implementation, monitoring, management, and evaluation of development programs. Originally conceived to address well-documented problems in the narrow field of capacity development, the Framework can be profitably applied to assess the feasibility and coherence of proposed development projects, to monitor projects during implementation (with a view to taking corrective action), or to assess the results, or even the design, of completed projects.
Research and the dissemination of evidence-based guidelines for best practice in crop production are fundamental for the protection of our crop yields against biotic and abiotic threats, and for meeting ambitious food production targets by 2050.
The Challenge of Capacity Development: Working Towards Good Practice draws on four decades of documented experience provided by both bilateral and multilateral donors, as well as academic specialists, to help policy makers and practitioners think through effective approaches to capacity development and what challenges remain in the drive to boost country capacity. The analysis is underpinned by a conceptual framework which guides practitioners to view capacity development at three interrelated levels: individual, organisational and enabling environment levels.
The publication reviews forty years of development experience and concludes that donors and partner countries alike have tended to look at capacity development as mainly a technical process, or as a transfer of knowledge or institutions from North to South.
Small-scale farmers in the Brazilian Amazon collectively hold tenure over more than 12 million ha of permanent forest reserves, as required by the Forest Code. The trade-off between forest conservation and other land uses entails opportunity costs for them and for the country, which have not been sufficiently studied. We assessed the potential income generated by multiple use forest management for farmers and compared it to the income potentially derived from six other agricultural land uses.
The Australian story of farmer innovation in Conservation Agriculture reveals a complex interplay of policy, economics, science, and farming. Farmer experimentation with Conservation Agriculture began in the 1960's and has continued to this day where around 80%-90% of Australia's 23.5 million hectares of winter crops are now grown using Conservation Agriculture principles. This remarkable achievement is the result of both sustained investment in agricultural research and development and farmer innovation.
Long embraced by corporations who are driven only by the desire for profit, industrial agriculture wastes precious resources and spews millions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year, exacerbating climate change and threatening the very earth and water on which we depend. However, this dominant system, from which Americans obtain most of their food, is being slowly supplanted by a new paradigm. The Emergent Agriculture is a collection of fourteen thematic essays on sustainability viewed through the lens of farming.
This year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) falls at a time where women across the globe are being disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The fisheries and aquaculture sectors have been particularly affected by the crisis. Although the data are limited, a significant amount of the workforce in these sectors is comprised of women. Most women carry out non-vessel based activities, including gleaning, processing and marketing, but the number of women in leadership positions is low.