This report is organized into nine chapters. Chapter one provides the introduction to the report. Chapter two presents alternative approaches to agribusiness development and chapter three discusses the role of agribusiness incubators. Chapter four discusses the challenges of agribusiness incubators and chapter five presents a typology of agribusiness incubators. Chapter six elaborates on the evolution of incubators over time. Chapter seven presents the analysis of impact and cost-benefits. Chapter eight summarizes good practices and lessons learned.
There have been numerous episodes of widespread adoption of improved seed and long-term achievements in the development of the maize seed industry in Sub-Saharan Africa. This summary takes a circumspect view of technical change in maize production. Adoption of improved seed has continued to rise gradually, now representing an estimated 44 percent of maize area in Eastern and Southern Africa (outside South Africa), and 60 percent of maize area in West and Central Africa. Use of fertilizer and restorative crop management practices remains relatively low and inefficient.
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.
Market opportunities are increasing at a rapid pace for livestock products, fuelled by rising incomes, globalisation and urbanisation, particularly in the developing world. At the same time, these opportunities bring increased complexity in the supply channels that market, distribute, organise and govern high-value products. This begs the questions on the ability of smallholder producers to contribute to this complex process.
This paper published in the 56th Annual Conference of The Agriculture Economics Association of South Africa, describes the opportunities of innovation bringed by the new global cannabis marketing, especially in Lesotho and aims to fill the gap of focused social scientific research on the potential of cannabis cultivation to promote inclusive growth creating conditions of improved social justice and economic emancipation
Within the context of the European-funded JOLISAA FP7 project (JOint Learning in Innovation Systems in African Agriculture), several agricultural innovation experiences focused on smallholders were assessed in Benin, Kenya and South Africa. Fifty-six cases were characterised through review of grey literature and interviews with resource persons according to a common analytical framework inspired by the innovation systems perspective. Of these, 13 were assessed in greater depth through semistructured interviews, focus-group discussions and multistakeholder workshops.
This work has largely focused on the developed world, yet the majority of people and future economic growth lies in the developing world. Further, most research examines micro data on consumers or firms, limiting what is known regarding the role of macro factors on diffusion, such as social systems. Addressing these limitations, this research provides the first high-level insights into how green building adoption is occurring in developing countries.
This paper reviewed the potential of underutilized indigenous and traditional crops to bring about a transformative change to South Africa’s food system. South Africa has a dichotomous food system, characterized by a distinct, dominant agro-industrial, and, alternative, informal food system. This dichotomous food system has inadvertently undermined the development of smallholder producers.
The current study examined the extent of knowledge concerning agricultural innovation systems amongst researchers, extension agents, farmers, input dealers, and marketers, while determining their attitude towards collaborating with agricultural innovation systems. Through using a simple random sampling technique; researchers, extension agents, farmers, input dealers, and marketers were selected as the study population.
Innovation processes in rural contexts occur in systems that are diverse, coupled with complex challenges. Dealing with complex systems requires an understanding of the social dynamics of actor networks and innovation.This study attempted to provide insights on thecompositional dynamics of actor networks,and how they influenceinteractive learning and innovation among agro-processing enterprises in South Africa. The guiding research questions to help address the study objectives are:What are the structural characteristics of actor networks for innovation in rural contexts?