Nebraska’s Natural Resource District System: Collaborative Approaches to Adaptive Groundwater Quality Governance

Nonpoint source pollution of groundwater by nitrates from agricultural activity is a persistent problem for which developing effective policy approaches has proven difficult. There is little empirical information on forms of governance or regime attributes that effectively and sustainably address agricultural nonpoint source pollution of groundwater. Nebraska’s Natural Resource District (NRD) system is a rare example of a groundwater governance regime that is putting programmes in place that are likely to generate sustainable groundwater quality outcomes. We focus on three groundwater nitrate management programmes in the state that collectively represent the broader NRD system. The research shows that four elements of Nebraska’s groundwater governance regime are fundamental to its success in addressing groundwater nitrates: 1) the local nature of governance, which builds trust among stakeholders; 2) the significant authority granted to the local districts by the state, allowing for the development of locally tailored solutions; 3) the collaborative governance approach, which allows potential scale imbalances to be overcome; and 4) the taxing authority granted to NRDs, which enables them to fund locally tailored management solutions. We find that these aspects of the NRD system have created conditions that enable adaptive, collaborative governance that positions the state well to address emerging groundwater quality challenges. We present aspects of the governance regime that are generalisable to other American states as efforts to address nitrate pollution in groundwater increase

Revealing power dynamics and staging conflicts in agricultural system transitions : Case studies of innovation platforms in New Zealand

Innovation platforms (IPs) that support agricultural innovation to enable transition processes towards more sustainable agriculture provide a space where conflicts of interest among actors in the existing agricultural system (the so called incumbent regime) may play out. Sometimes these conflicts over how actors will benefit from an action are not revealed until actors are brought together. However, a barrier to change occurs when IP actors use their existing power to mobilise resources to influence if and how individual and collective interests are aligned. In the context of agricultural innovation and transitions, this paper uses the power in transitions framework (Avelino and Wittmayer, 2016), along with analytical perspectives on conflicts and role perceptions, to understand how consciously staging or revealing conflicts of interest among IP actors changed role perceptions and power relations among these actors. The paper explores this topic in two IPs addressing agricultural production and sustainability challenges in New Zealand's agricultural sector. Conflicts were staged in IPs when one group of actors mobilised resources that enabled them to move existing power relations from one-sided, to synergistic or a mutual dependency. This enabled conflicts to be acknowledged and solved. In contrast, conflicts were not staged when actors mobilised resources to maintain antagonostic power relations. Our cases demontrate that staging conflicts to change actors' role perceptions is an important intermediary step to forming new power relations in the agricultural system. Our findings highlight the need for IP theory to conceptualise power relations in IPs as context specific, dynamic and a force shaping outcomes, rather than solely a force exerted by actors in the incumbent regime over IP actors.</p

Analysing intermediary organisations and their influence on upgrading in emerging agricultural clusters

This paper analyses intermediary organisations in developing economy agricultural clusters. The paper critically engages with a growing narrative in studies of intermediaries that have stressed the ownership structure of intermediaries as a key driver for enabling knowledge transfer, inter-firm learning and upgrading of small producers in clusters. Two case studies of Latin American clusters are presented and discussed. The study suggests that in addition to ownership structure, cluster governance and the embeddedness of intermediaries in clusters are critical factors that need to be taken into account in understanding the influence of intermediaries in the upgrading of small producers in clusters

Agricultural innovation platforms in West Africa: How does strategic institutional entrepreneurship unfold in different value chain contexts?

Inspired by Innovation System theory, donors promote Innovation Platforms (IP) to enhance collaboration for development. However, the question arises whether this is the best approach to facilitate change. The article presents the experience of an action-research programme (2009-2013) on the value of IPs for creating institutional change for the benefit of smallholders, in various value chain contexts in West Africa. We analyse the cases from a dialectic perspective on institutional entrepreneurship. Results show: the open IP approach, with some clear principles and in-depth analysis of the antagonistic context, enabled the initiator-cum-facilitators to create a reasonably effective IP coalition that endorsed broker activities fit for the context. In a mature value chain, it was possible to mobilise incumbent actors, who perceived a mutual benefit in enhancing smallholder development. In the other cases, IPs were started at lower administrative levels, building discursive legitimacy and -appeal to mobilise smallholders and higher level authorities for institutional change. We note a researcher-initiated open IP approach is able to induce strategic action in-situ, but the approach has its limitation: In the time given, IPs could neither build a cooperative smallholder movement, nor interest private export companies to invest in smallholders; nor tackle misaligned political interests

Systems approaches to innovation in pest management: reflections and lessons learned from an integrated research program on parasitic weeds in rice

This paper provides a retrospective look at a systems-oriented research program, on the increasing occurrence of parasitic weeds in rainfed rice in sub-Saharan Africa, to qualitatively assess merits and identify challenges of such approach. We gained a broad contextual overview of the problem and different stakeholders' roles, which enabled identification of entry points for innovations in parasitic weed management. At the crop level parasitic weed infestation is associated with poor soil fertility and water management. Farmers' infrequent use of inputs to control them was caused by various factors, ranging from fears of undesired side effects (agronomic) to a lack of quality control of products (institutional). Furthermore, there may be enough extension agents, but they lack the required training on (parasitic) weed management to provide farmers with advice, while their organizations do not provide them with the necessary means for farm visits. At even higher organizational levels we observed a lack of coherent policies on parasitic weed control and implementation of them. Merits and challenges of an integrated multi-stakeholder and multi-level research project are discussed

Vaccinia-Related Kinase 1 Is Required for the Maintenance of Undifferentiated Spermatogonia in Mouse Male Germ Cells

Vaccinia-related kinase 1 (VRK1) is a crucial protein kinase for mitotic regulation. VRK1 is known to play a role in germ cell development, and its deficiency results in sterility. Here we describe that VRK1 is essential for the maintenance of spermatogonial stem cells. To determine whether VRK1 plays a role in these cells, we assessed the population size of undifferentiated spermatogonia. Flow cytometry analyses showed that the number of undifferentiated spermatogonia was markedly reduced in VRK1-deficient testes. VRK1 was highly expressed in spermatogonial populations, and approximately 66% of undifferentiated spermatogonia that were sorted as an Ep-CAM+/c-kit−/alpha-6-integrin+ population showed a positive signal for VRK1. Undifferentiated stem cells expressing Plzf and Oct4 but not c-kit also expressed VRK1, suggesting that VRK1 is an intrinsic factor for the maintenance of spermatogonial stem cells. Microarray analyses of the global testicular transcriptome and quantitative RT-PCR of VRK1-deficient testes revealed significantly reduced expression levels of undifferentiated spermatogonial marker genes in early postnatal mice. Together, these results suggest that VRK1 is required for the proliferation and differentiation of undifferentiated spermatogonia, which are essential for spermatogenic cell maintenance

What are innovation platforms? Innovation platforms practice brief 1

Innovation platforms are widely used in agricultural research to connect different stakeholders to achieve common goals. This is one of 12 ‘practice briefs’ to help guide agricultural research practitioners who seek to support and implement innovation platforms. A contribution to the CGIAR Humidtropics research program, the development of the briefs was led by the International Livestock Research Institute; they draw on experiences of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food, several CGIAR centres and partner organization