Building Competence and Confidence in Agricultural
Innovation*
Improving rural livelihoods through agricultural innovation
has made recent advances, for example through the introduction of new
technologies, the development of novel seed varieties, and through a broader
availability of micro-financing. Yet progress is still limited. It seems
that irrespective of which new technologies are made available, farmers do not
always adopt them. Why? One hypothesis is that ‘soft skills’, those that
are necessary for the process of change, could be improved. Such skills include
the capacity for collaboration with others, negotiation expertise, and the
capacity for influential engagement in political processes.
A turning point
on international commitment to strengthen rural livelihoods occurred at the
2011 meeting of Ministers of Agriculture from the G20 countries. The
Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP)** was then established to address these and
other issues. In 2015, the Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovations
Systems (CDAIS)*** was founded and participants from eight countries in Africa, Asia
and Central America, along with their global partners, took on the challenging
task of putting a new approach into practice. These countries are: Angola,
Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Laos and Rwanda.
Towards this end, CDAIS supported a global consultation through the TAP Global
Taskforce. The Taskforce developed a common methodology called ‘the framework
on capacity development for agricultural innovation systems’.
The eight CDAIS
pilot countries, in turn, use this conceptual framework to guide their
activities. Farmers and many others involved in the 32 innovation partnerships across the eight
countries have shared their views in
this book, three years from the start. They
‘speak’ about the changes, but also of
the challenges, and as such, they offer signals, road signs, and indications of
which are the best directions to take from here.
The book can be downloaded
here
*This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the
sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
** In response to this capacity gap, the G20 Agriculture Ministers in their meeting in June 2011, had requested the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to take the lead in developing the Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP), along with the G20 countries and institutional partners. TAP partners in 2015 developed a methodology called ‘The Common Framework on Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation Systems’.
***CDAIS, or Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation Systems, funded by the European Commission and implemented by Agrinatura, a consortium of European universities and research institutes, in partnership with FAO and national partners.