The Webinar with Universities on Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation - Bringing System-wide Change in Asia-Pacific took place on 16 November 2017, 13:00hrs (CET) under the Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP) hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI) organized and moderated the webinar, with support from FAO, the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences (GCHERA) and Global Forum for Agricultural Research (GFAR).
Though Odisha is India’s top sweetpotato-producing state, most farmers grow low-yielding varieties of limited nutritional value. The Odisha Directorate of Horticulture and the International Potato Center (CIP) spent four years promoting improved varieties and good agricultural practices in four districts of Odisha, resulting in a 25 per cent growth in the area dedicated to the crop, a 17 per cent increase in farm productivity, and a 40 per cent increase in farmer incomes within the project areas; as well as the introduction of a nutritious, orange-fleshed sweetpotato variety.
Capacity building for integrating gender in research and development (R&D) on agricultural innovations often remains with organizing single gender training. Alternatively, it is often limited to hiring a gender specialist to allocate a small amount of her/his time to the project. This has proofed to be ineffective and a heavy burden for gender specialists. This success story presents an innovative approach to capacity development, which successfully changed agricultural researchers’ attitude to gender in Southeast Asia, with a specific focus in Vietnam.
With the ratification of Republic Act (RA) No. 10055 or the Philippine Technology Transfer Act of 2009, the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD) has intensified its efforts on technology transfer by establishing the DOST-PCAARRD Innovation and Technology Center (DPITC). The Center is designed to deliver quality services on technology commercialization and intellectual property (IP) management.
In an effort to reinvigorate and strengthen its agriculture research system, the Department of Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests (MoAF), designed a series of capacity building programmes over the last six months. The initiatives were instrumental in building functional capacities (soft skills) of over 90 officials, who mostly represented the country’s four agriculture research centres.
A network of women farmers’ leaders is set to drive widespread adoption of innovations and technologies across India. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), together with the Department of Biotechnology of India’s Ministry of Science and Technology, are training women farmer leaders on advanced rice production and soft skills to help boost food security in India.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) financed the second Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resource Management Project (CHARMP2), in areas where poverty is most severe among indigenous peoples in the highlands of the Cordillera Region in northern Philippines. The aim is to reduce poverty and improve the livelihoods of indigenous peoples living in farming communities in the mountainous project area. The indigenous peoples consist of many tribes whose main economic activity is agriculture.
Green Extension is an umbrella term used to describe rural advisory services which support the scaling up of sustainable agriculture. This encompasses a range of methods to promote various types of content. What these approaches have in common is a process of socio-ecological learning, i.e., supporting farmers to analyse local problems and opportunities, and test alternative practices under local conditions.
Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) and short organic supply chains have emerged as promising solutions for smallholder farmers to provide organic produce to nearby consumers. PGS is an institutional innovation that builds trust among producers, traders and consumers through a low-cost transparent and participatory certification mechanism. They have particularly gained a foothold among smallholder farmers in middle- income countries, where third-party certification costs are often unaffordable.
Holding a vision of Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE), and with a target of net-zero carbon emission by 2070, India plans to usher in a green industrial and economic transition through a movement with an environmentally conscious lifestyle. One of the credible options for a continuous, predictable, accessible and cost-free green energy source is solar power. In the agricultural sector, one of the key innovations in promoting solar irrigation was the initiation of the world's first ever Solar Cooperative - Dhundi Solar Energy Producers' Cooperative Society (DSEPCS) - in Gujarat, India.