The purpose of the paper, using a comprehensive innovation systems failure framework, is to assess the performance of agrifood innovation systems of Scotland and the Netherlands, through analysis of the key innovation actors (organisations, networks or influential individuals), and their key functions (research provider, intermediary etc), and those mechanisms that either facilitate or hinder the operation of the IS (known as inducing and blocking mechanisms, respectively).
This book reports on the Papa Andina Partnership Program, which has been an especially innovative and productive regional initiative, bringing together researchers, small farmers, diverse market actors, and dozens of organizations in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru to spur innovation in public policies, potato products, and value market chains.
In the post-harvest area and in agriculture research in general, both in India and internationally, policy attention is returning to the question of how innovation can be encouraged and promoted and thus how impact on the poor can be achieved. This publication assembles several cases from the post-harvest sector. These provide examples of successful innovation that emerged in quite different ways. Its purpose is to illustrate and analyze the diversity and often highly context-specific nature of the processes that lead to and promote innovation.
This document summarizes the fifteen projects that were selected by a panel of international experts as those which best represent the technological, institutional and organizational innovations carried out with and by small farmers – known as family farming - in LAC. This is the result of a hemisphere-wide competition organized in 2012 by FONTAGRO, with the aim of (1) showcasing success stories in which innovations having positive economic, social, and environmental impacts have been implemented and, (2) raising awareness regarding the importance of investing in innovation.
Various researchers and policy analysts have made empirical studies of innovation systems in order to understand their current structure and trace their dynamics. However, policy makers often experience difficulties in extracting practical guidelines from studies of this kind. In this paper, we operationalize our previous work on a functional approach to analyzing innovation system dynamics into a practical scheme of analysis for policy makers. The scheme is based on previous literature and our own experience in developing and applying functional thinking.
Farmers and businesses need to adapt constantly if they are to survive and compete in the rapidly evolving environment associated with the contemporary agricultural sector. Rethinking agricultural research as part of a dynamic system of innovation could help to design ways of creating and sustaining conditions that will support the process of adaptation and innovation. This approach involves developing the working styles and practices of individuals and organizations and the incentives, support structures and policy environments that encourage innovation.
In Bangladesh, strengthening agricultural innovation calls for facilitation of interactive communication and a wide range of mediation tasks within (and between) stakeholders operating in different social spheres. This paper examines how a public-sector agricultural extension agency has attempted to change its roles in implementing a major agricultural extension project in order to strengthen agricultural innovation.
From 4 June to 1 July 2012, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) hosted a moderated email conference on "Ensuring the full participation of family farmers in agricultural innovation systems: Key issues and case studies". It was a highly successful global dialogue, with a very stimulating discussion. About 560 people subscribed to the conference, of whom 114 people (20% of the total), from nearly 50 different countries, wrote at least one of the 242 messages that were posted.
This is one of lead papers presented at Innovation Asia-Pacific Symposium: 4-7 May, 2009 Kathmandu, Nepal. Cases representing practical examples of what it might mean to use innovation systems interventions and recognize key features are presented. Four cases represent actions facilitating uptake of research outputs including; a crop pest bio-control method; post harvest management of coffee; isolation and commercialization of an indigenous seed variety and; a community based system to forecast armyworm plagues.
This paper looks at the process of agricultural innovation and the contribution agricultural research can make. To be able to analyse the process of agricultural innovation, three dimensions are distinguished: 1) opportunity assessment to identify ‘entry points for change’, defined drawing on the expertise and experience of many actors; 2) experimentation under realistic circumstances, leading to ‘tested and tried promising new practices’; and 3) bringing into routine use for ‘impact at scale’, which invariably incurs in further adaptation to fit a diversity of ‘local realities’.