Making sense of innovation processes in african smallholder agricullture

The European-funded Framework Programme 7 project, Joint Learning in Innovation Systems in African Agriculture (JOLISAA), assessed agricultural innovation experiences focused on smallholders in Benin, Kenya, and South Africa. Fifty-six cases were characterized through review of grey literature and interviews with resource persons, according to a common analytical framework inspired by the innovation systems (IS) perspective. Thirteen of the cases were assessed in greater depth through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and multistakeholder workshops. The cases covered a wide diversity of experiences in terms of types, domains, scales, timelines, initiators of innovation and stakeholders involved. Findings revealed multiple triggers and drivers of innovation. For external stakeholders, key triggers included likelihood of offering a technological fix to an existing problem and availability of funding. For local people, access to input and output markets was a powerful trigger and driver. Market types and dynamics varied greatly. Developing functional value chains and accessing markets proved particularly challenging, especially for poorer and weakly organized farmers. Over long periods, determinants of innovation changed dynamically and often unpredictably, including motivations of key stakeholders, triggers, drivers and stakeholder arrangements. The direction of innovation evolved, often moving from a technology entry point to more organizational or institutional issues. A recurring challenge for fostering innovation is whether and how to build on local initiatives and knowledge, and how to sustain externally driven innovation processes beyond the project time frame. A major conclusion from JOLISAA is that innovation has to be seen as a continuously evolving process of ‘innovation bundles’ (a combination of different types of innovation) of various kinds, rather than as a pre-planned, and usually, narrowly-defined technical intervention. Consequently, open-ended, flexible approaches to innovation are needed with the potential to engage meaningfully over a long time with local stakeholders and bearers of local innovation dynamics, so that they take full charge of the innovation process and direction

Effectiveness of innovation grants to smallholder agricultural producers: an explorative systematic review

Grants for agricultural innovation are common but grant funds specifically targeted to smallholder farmers remain relatively rare. Nevertheless, they are receiving increasing recognition as a promising venue for agricultural innovation. They stimulate smallholders to experiment with improved practices, to become proactive and to engage with research and extension providers. The systematic review covered three modalities of disbursing these grants to smallholder farmers and their organisations: vouchers, competitive grants and farmer-led innovation support funds. The synthesis covers, among others, innovation grant systems in Malawi (Agricultural Input Subsidy Programme), Latin America (several Challenge Funds for Farmer Groups), Uganda (National Agricultural Advisory Services ), and Colombia (Local Agricultural Research Committees - CIAL)

A survey of the state-of-the-art techniques for cognitive impairment detection in the elderly

With a growing number of elderly people in the UK, more and more of them suffer from various kinds of cognitive impairment. Cognitive impairment can be divided into different stages such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and severe cognitive impairment like dementia. Its early detection can be of great importance. However, it is challenging to detect cognitive impairment in the early stage with high accuracy and low cost, when most of the symptoms may not be fully expressed. This survey paper mainly reviews the state of the art techniques for the early detection of cognitive impairment and compares their advantages and weaknesses. In order to build an effective and low-cost automatic system for detecting and monitoring the cognitive impairment for a wide range of elderly people, the applications of computer vision techniques for the early detection of cognitive impairment by monitoring facial expressions, body movements and eye movements are highlighted in this paper. In additional to technique review, the main research challenges for the early detection of cognitive impairment with high accuracy and low cost are analysed in depth. Through carefully comparing and contrasting the currently popular techniques for their advantages and weaknesses, some important research directions are particularly pointed out and highlighted from the viewpoints of the authors alone

Population and Environmental Correlates of Maize Yields in Mesoamerica: a Test of Boserup’s Hypothesis in the Milpa

Using a sample of 40 sources reporting milpa and mucuna-intercropped maize yields in Mesoamerica, we test Boserup’s (1965) prediction that fallow is reduced as a result of growing population density. We further examine direct and indirect effects of population density on yield. We find only mixed support for Boserupian intensification. Fallow periods decrease slightly with increasing population density in this sample, but the relationship is weak. Controlling for other covariates, fallow-unadjusted maize yields first rise then fall with population density. Fallow-adjusted maize yields peak at 390 kg/ha/yr for low population densities (8 persons / km2) and decline to around 280 kg/ha/yr for the highest population densities observed in our dataset. Fallow practices do not appear to mediate the relationship between population density and yield. The multi-level modeling methods we adopt allow for data clustering, accurate estimates of group-level variation, and they generate conditional predictions, all features essential to the comparative study of prehistoric and contemporary agricultural yields

A comparison of approaches to farming systems research projects

Farming Systems Research (FSR) projects would appear to be good models for future applied agricultural research. But the question has to be asked about whether FSR really does meet its broad objectives of achieving participation and reaching targeted beneficiaries (i.e. scalingout). The farming system research-extension approach was developed based on the premise that activities commenced with understanding of the problems of farmers. With FSR projects it is usually accepted that a mutual learning and problem sharing approach is required for effective diffusion of knowledge and technology into a wide and often heterogeneous regional area. In this paper we look at three examples of FSR from the perspective of what are the likely success factors for participation and scaling-out outcomes. The examples come from 3 geographically and culturally different groups of cropping farmers: these are the Eyre Peninsula Farming System Group, South Australia; a rice-wheat system in India; and the Guanujuato Region, Mexico. For each example the participative approach is systematically recommended, but it is clear that there can be no consensus or prescriptive approach on its form, and it is not possible to recommend a particular approach until the specific requirements of the farming system are discovered. The approach developed implies different scaling-out strategies depending on the interests or relevance of users. Thus it is recognised that participation is a component of the process and not an end product in itself