Grant funds specifically targeted to smallholder farmers to facilitate innovation are a promising agricultural policy instrument. They stimulate smallholders to experiment with improved practices, and to engage with research, extension and business development services providers. However, evidence on impact and effectiveness of these grants is scarce. Partly, because attribution of changes in practices and performance to the grant alone is challenging, and the grant is often invested in innovation processes that benefitted from other support in the past. The author discuss three modalities: vouchers, business development matching grants and farmer-driven innovation support funds. Their review points to an important and transversal outcome area of innovation grant systems: the creation of human and social capital to sustain creative thinking and innovative practices.
Social learning in multi-actor innovation networks is increasingly considered an important precondition for addressing sustainability in regional development contexts. Social learning is seen as a means for enabling stakeholders to take advantage of the diversity in perspectives, interests and values...
Innovation systems can be defined in a variety of ways: they can be national, regional, sectoral, or technological. They all involve the creation, diffusion, and use of knowledge. Systems consist of components, relationships among these, and their characteristics or attributes....
The article provides a conceptual framework and discusses research methods for analyzing pluralistic agricultural advisory services. The framework can also assist policy-makers in identifying reform options. It addresses the following question: Which forms of providing and financing agricultural advisory services...
Ethiopian agriculture is changing as new actors, relationships, and policies influence the ways in which small-scale, resource-poor farmers access and use information and knowledge in their agricultural production decisions. Although these changes suggest new opportunities for smallholders, too little is...
Agricultural education, research, and extension can contribute substantially to reducing rural poverty in the developing world. However, evidence suggests that their contributions are falling short in Sub-Saharan Africa. The entry of new actors, technologies, and market forces, when combined with...
