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is on interaction between actors and their embeddedness
in an institutional and policy context. Many actors in the
public and private sectors could be involved in the creation,
diffusion, adaptation and use of knowledge relevant to agricultural
production and marketing. Instead of regarding
public research and extension agencies as the prime movers
of agricultural processes, the innovation systems framework
recognizes that 1) a broad spectrum of actors outside
the State have an important role; 2) the relative importance
of different actors changes during the innovation process;
3) as circumstances change and as actors learn, roles can
evolve; and 4) actors can play multiple roles —sometimes as
a sources of knowledge, sometimes as seekers of knowledge
and sometimes as a coordinator of linkages between others
(Hall et al., 2004).
The innovation systems concept recognizes that the inclusion
of stakeholders and their demands can shape the
focus and direction of innovation processes. The processes
are not articulated by the market alone but can be expressed
through a number of other channels, such as collaborative
relationships between users and producers of knowledge or
mutual participation in organizational governance (for example,
board membership). This framework is now being
tested in various contexts in SSA.
The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA)
is testing innovative partnership processes, or “Innovation
Platforms,” which seek to better understand how processes
for systemic innovation can be organized among researchers,
practitioners, policy actors, market chain actors and
rural communities in order to make innovations useful, affordable
and accessible to end users (Box 5-1). The Innovation
Platforms will serve to provide a space (not necessary
physical) around which stakeholders will organize around
particular themes. A common Innovation Platform will
bring together researchers from different disciplines, private
sector (input suppliers, output markets, market information
systems, microfinance institutions), practitioners (NGOs,
extension departments), decision makers, rural communities
and farmer organizations. This approach is being tested
and evaluated in various countries under the SSA Challenge
program (FARA, 2007).
5.2.2 Soil variability
A key challenge in SSA is the high variability of African
soils, rendering blanket recommendations inappropriate for
many farmers (Bindraban and Rabbinge, 2003). This high
variability suggests that decision tools would complement a
basket of available technologies and would also counter a
criticism of participatory approaches—that they are difficult
to scale up. Options for enabling such “precision agriculture”
vary from high-tech satellite referencing to relatively
simple scoring techniques based on farmer observations of
their own fields (Gandah et al., 2000).
Linking systems modeling tools to farmer participatory
research. Computer models have been developed that can
be used to help resource-poor farmers in SSA determine
the best use of, for example, crop residues, fertilizers and
alterative land uses (Mando, 1997; Ibrahim et al., 1988;
Sissoko, 1998; Sawadogo and Stamm, 2000; Slingerland,
2000; Kanté, 2001; Schiere et al., 2002). Systems model- |
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Box 5-1. New agricultural initiatives that seek to
address AKST and natural resources.
NEPAD: Agriculture is one of NEPAD’s ten sectoral priorities,
within which activities at the national and international
level include protecting natural resources through proposed
interventions such as integrated land and water management,
on-farm and small-scale irrigation development, land
improvement, and the upgrading and rehabilitation of existing
large-scale irrigation projects (Njobe, 2003).
IFAD: In west and central Africa, IFAD’s priorities include
increasing agricultural and natural resource productivity; and
improving poor rural people’s access to, and management of,
land and water (http://www.ifad.org).
FARA: FARA’s Sub Saharan Africa Challenge Program
(SSACP) “aims to address the most significant constraints
to reviving agriculture in Africa which it identifies as failures
of agricultural markets, inappropriate policies and natural resource
degradation with a new paradigm, Integrated Agricultural
Research for Development (IAR4D)”. FARA hopes further
to “foster synergies among disciplines and institutions along
with a renewed commitment to change at all levels from farmers
to national and international policy makers”.
AHI: The African Highlands Initiative, a collaborative effort
among National Agricultural Research Institutes (NARIs),
International Agricultural Research Centers (IARCs) and various
NGOs focuses on key natural resource management and
agricultural productivity issues in the intensively cultivated
highlands of East and Central Africa. The initiative aims to “development approaches and partnerships to develop and
institutionalize effective and efficient approaches for sustainable
integrated natural resource management (INRM) and
enhanced productivity . . . promoting integrated, inter-institutional
research and development efforts with strong community
participation to solve critical issues of soil productivity,
water and land-use” (http://www.africanhighlands.org/).
DMP: The Desert Margins Program, a collaborative effort
convened by ICRISAT, aims to analyze the root causes of dryland
degradation in Africa; document indigenous knowledge
of sustainable practices; develop more sustainable practices;
help governments design policies that encourage sustainable
practices; enhance African institutional capacities for
land degradation research and outreach; facilitate the sharing
of technologies, knowledge and information; and forecast
possible climate change scenarios for land use planning (the
countries involved are Botswana, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali,
Namibia, Niger, Senegal, South Africa and Zimbabwe; http://
www.dmpafrica.net/index.htm).
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ing linked to farmer participatory research in sub-Saharan
Africa can help farmers interact with scientists and speed up
the research process (CIAT, 2002). Information and communications
technologies (ICT), including geographic information
systems (GIS), can help to increase understanding of
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