Farmers’ experiments can be defined as the autonomous activities of farmers to try or introduce something new at the farm, and include evaluation of success or failure with farmers’ own methods. Experiments enable farmers to adapt their farms to changing circumstances, build up local knowledge, and have resulted in countless agricultural innovations. Most research on the topic has been conducted in countries of the south.
Organic farming is recognized as one source for innovation helping agriculture to develop sustainably. However, the understanding of innovation in agriculture is characterized by technical optimism, relying mainly on new inputs and technologies originating from research. The paper uses the alternative framework of innovation systems describing innovation as the outcome of stakeholder interaction and examples from the SOLID (Sustainable Organic Low-Input Dairying) project to discuss the role of farmers, researchers and knowledge exchange for innovation.
Until recently, little attention has been paid to local innovation capacity as well as management practices and institutions developed by communities and other local actors based on their traditional knowledge. This paper doesn't focus on the results of scientific research into innovation systems, but rather on how local communities, in a network of supportive partnerships, draw knowledge for others, combine it with their own knowledge and then innovate in their local practices.
Local innovation refers to the dynamics of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) - the knowledge that grows within a social group, incorporating learning from own experience over generations but also knowledge gained from other sources and fully internalized within local ways of thinking and doing. Local innovation is the process through which individuals or groups discover or develop new and better ways of managing resources - building on and expanding the boundaries of their IK.
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The biodiversity of food plants is vital for humanity's capacity to meet sustainability challenges. This goal requires the rigorous integration of plant, environmental, social and health sciences. It is coalescing around four thematic cornerstones that are both interdisciplinary and policy relevant.
Over the past decades, Brazilian agriculture has played an important role in the international market, in response to growing global demand for products, services and food security. This achievement was in a large extent powered by the ability to generate knowledge and the actions promoted by science and technology institutes.
Les démarches participatives suscitent un intérêt grandissant en tant que pratiques de recherche en agriculture. Dans l'objectif de faciliter les échanges de pratiques entre chercheurs, cet article propose une grille d'analyse qui appréhende le processus de participation de façon globale et dynamique.
En México y en el mundo, la incorporación de la comunidad científica (entre ellos los ecólogos) a la generación de conocimientos que coadyuven a solucionar los graves problemas ambientales, y avanzar hacia la sustentabilidad, requiere de una visión diferente en la investigación. Más aún, se requiere de herramientas novedosas para acoplar el trabajo de la comunidad científica con el resto de la sociedad.
Este estudio analizó la evolución de una red de innovación entre productores de hule natural durante tres periodos de observación (dos olas o tres años), y evaluó cómo los productores reaccionan a diferentes innovaciones en un momento dado. Las prácticas de innovación fueron agrupadas en tres actividades: control de plagas y enfermedades, establecimiento y manejo de plantaciones, y manejo de cosecha y poscosecha.
La extensión rural es un proceso de trabajo y acompañamiento con el productor orientado al desarrollo sostenible de sus capacidades. En México, se han adaptado una serie de modelos de extensión que van desde el norteamericano, implementado a principios de la década de 1980, hasta el modelo de hub o nodo de innovación (plataforma - módulo demostrativo - área de extensión), aplicado desde el 2010 en el marco del Programa MasAgro. El objetivo de este documento es analizar los diversos procesos de extensión en México.