Some of the most promising and at the same time some of the most challenging areas of future food production are found in the savannas of South America. Integrating cropping, livestock, and forestry in these regions can increase the eco-efficiency of agricultural production. This chapter presents a case study of an integrated crop, livestock, and forestry system in Brazil. The study area is in Goiás State in the Cerrado region, a vast savanna covering almost one quarter of Brazil's land area.
The chapter is a part of the book Integrated Agricultural Research for Development: from Concept to Practice.
This book chapter focuses on dimensions of rural learning in Africa, with a special focus on rice farmers. Four key challenges in rural learning are addressed, namely social inclusion, scaling up, collecting farmer feedback and assessing impact. The potentially powerful role of videos in rural learning is illustrated. Experiences from Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) and partners are presented alongside other relevant experiences.
This paper has been prepared under the guidelines provided by the TAP Secretariat at the FAO, as a contribution to the G20 initiative TAP, which includes near 40 partners and is facilitated by FAO. Its purpose is to provide a Regional synthesis report on capacity needs assessment for agricultural innovation, with capacity gaps identified and analyzed, including recommendations to strengthen agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and draft policy recommendations to address the capacity gaps.
This note is part of the Global Good Practices Initiative, which aims to provide information about extension approaches and methods in easy-to-understand formats. It focuses on Innovation Platforms, examining in particular two case studies: the Ghana Oil Palm platform and the Research Into Use (RIU) programme in Tanzania.
This brief discusses the benefits of innovation platforms in dealing with natural resource management issues.
This brief is part of the series of ‘practice briefs’ intended to help guide agricultural research practitioners who seek to support and implement innovation platforms. A contribution to the CGIAR Humidtropics research program, the development of the briefs was led by the International Livestock Research Institute; they draw on experiences of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food, several CGIAR centres and partner organizations.
Policy processes are formal and informal negotiations in which heterogeneous groups of stakeholders seek to influence policy agenda setting and the development and implementation of policy. Innovation platforms can help balance the vested interests of market actors, civil society and other stakeholders to support policy processes. They can bring together different types of expertise, experience and interests, and facilitate learning between policymakers and market and civil society actors to develop negotiated and implementable policies and regulations.
The markets and value chains approach has recently become fashionable in agricultural development interventions. So too have innovation platforms. This brief shows how innovation platforms can be a useful vehicle to promote market development. It is available in Chinese, English, Hindi, Thai and Vietnamese.
La innovación inclusiva es un proceso que involucra la coordinación de diversos actores en contextos específicos, en el cual las instituciones juegan un papel central en los procesos de aprendizaje e innovación colaborativa de la población de escasos recursos. Las preguntas centrales que se tratan de responder son ¿cómo construir procesos de innovación inclusiva? y ¿cómo influyen las instituciones en esos procesos?
Este manual aglutina una serie de experiencias desarrolladas por el proyecto y presenta, de manera objetiva y clara, los procesos metodológicos para cada una de las opciones descritas. Cada alternativa agroecológica se ha estructurado en una ficha informativa de fácil comprensión y aplicación en campo. Se espera que este material sea aprovechado por las comunidades rurales del trópico americano, por productores y productoras, estudiantes y académicos del agro, en pro de un ambiente más sano y una inocuidad más tangible de los productos agrícolas provenientes de las áreas de producción