Agricultural innovation happens at different scales and through different streams. In the absence of a common global research agenda, decisions on which innovations are brought to existence, and through which methods, are taken with insufficient view on how innovation affects social relations, the environment, and future food production. Mostly, innovations are considered from the standpoint of economic efficiency, particularly in relationship to creating jobs for technology-exporting countries.
Por su complejidad, el cambio profundo que hoy requiere la formación docente se vincula con la capacidad de comprender y reconocer el surgimiento de los procesos “emergentes” que den paso a la innovación. Para poder identificar intervenciones con mayores oportunidades de tener incidencia en los procesos de formación, es necesario reconocer y comprender los procesos “emergentes” y su sostenibilidad cuando se pasa del nivel local al general (masificación).
Various indications that research and development efforts are escalating in developing countries indicate the slight shift of such countries from just being end markets to being developers. The aggregate adoption of biotech crops in developing countries is clearly approaching that in developed countries. The next generation biotech crops with superior traits, with improved properties and quality traits will likely be created and deployed in developing countries, particularly in Asia, where half of the world’s population dwells.
Research, extension, and advisory services are some of the most knowledge-intensive elements of agricultural innovation systems. They are also among the heaviest users of information communication technologies (ICTs). This module introduces ICT developments in the wider innovation and knowledge systems as well as explores drivers of ICT use in research and extension
Research, extension, and advisory services are some of the most knowledge-intensive elements of agricultural innovation systems. They are also among the heaviest users of information communication technologies (ICTs). This module introduces ICT developments in the wider innovation and knowledge systems as well as explores drivers of ICT use in research and extension.
The generation of innovations has traditionally been attributed to research organizations and the farmer’s own potential for the development of innovative solutions has largely been neglected. In this chapter, we explore the innovativeness of farmers in Upper East Ghana. To this end, we employ farmer innovation contests for the identification of local innovations. Awards such as motorcycles function as an incentive for farmers to share innovations and develop new practices.
Smallholders in Asia and Africa are affected by increasingly complex national and global ecological and economic changes. Agricultural innovation and technology shifts are critical among these forces of change and integration with services is increasingly facilitated through innovations in institutions. Here the authors focused mainly on innovation opportunities for small farmers, with a particular emphasis on marginalized small farm communities. The chapter elaborates on the concept of the ‘small farm’ and offers a synthesis of the findings of all the chapters in this volume.
The chapter is a part of the book Innovation platforms for agricultural development edited by Iddo Dror, Jean-Joseph Cadilhon, Marc Schut, Michael Misiko and Shreya Maheshwari. It introduces the background for the setting up of innovation platforms (IPs), initiation and function of the three IPs in Ethiopian highlands, innovation fund to support fodder development, the role of different actors in scaling up, outcomes and impact of the intervention, and lessons learned.
This chapter presents an innovation system approach for urban agriculture. It argues that urban agriculture is a systemic concept – agriculture intertwined with urban dynamic – but that a systemic approach is often missing. Such an approach allows identifying strengths and weaknesses of urban agriculture for a particular city, region or country, in a comprehensive way. Based on these insights, more precise and targeted policies can be designed to stimulate urban agriculture and innovations needed in its context.
Agricultural innovation invariably involves a whole range of partnerships, alliances and network-like arrangements that connect together knowledge users, knowledge producers and others involved in enabling innovation in the market, policy and civil society arenas. There is now a very large conceptual and empirical literature that reveals agricultural innovation not as process of invention driven by research, but as a process of making novel use of ideas (old and new) with the specific intention of adding social, economic and/or environmental value.