3,254 research outputs found
Supporting local innovation for rural development: Analysis and review of five innovation support funds
In continents and countries such as Africa and India, huge agricultural areas are "de-facto" organic. More formalised - and knowledge intense - methods of organic agriculture has proved potential help farmers achieve better development returns from farming organic. While not commonly referred to (formally certified) as "organic", this huge agricultural sector mainly depend on farmer-knowledge intensive and local innovation systems very much of the same kind that served development of organic agriculture in the west, before agricultural universities and subsequently governments took interest in participating in developing "organic" agriculture. The aim of this study is to follow up on a World Bank workshop on innovation systems at the community level. Most of the knowledge and innovation referred to in the report relates to agriculture. By resolution, this workshop recommended that a âreview of existing innovation support funds and outline of a global mechanism to foster community level innovationsâ should be undertaken. The
study is also, in part, a response to a recent report from the World Bankâs Indigenous
Knowledge for Development Program, which calls for the establishment
of an âinnovation fund to promote successful IK practicesâ (Gorjestani, N., in
WB 2004; 45-53).
Th is desk study reviews fi ve innovation support funds (ISFs) or funding concepts:
the Indian âNational Innovation Fundâ (NIF) and its associated web of institutions;
the GTZ-funded âSmall-Scale Project Fundâ (SSPF); the NGO concept
âPromoting Local Innovation in ecologically oriented agriculture and NRMâ
(PROLINNOVA); the FAOâs project, âPromoting Farmer Innovation-Farmer Field
Schoolsâ (PFI-FFS); and the âLocal Agricultural Research Committeeâ (CIAL) in
Latin America.
Local innovations are broadly perceived as constituting a major under-utilized
potential for development and rural poverty reduction, and ISFs as contributing to realize this potential. Local innovators continue to experiment and generated
knowledge within a broad spectrum of areas, including improved mechanical
tools for agriculture, natural resource management, medicinal and agricultural
practices, and innovative ways of organizing and doing business. Th e signifi cance
of local innovators as a source of knowledge and well-adapted solutions is high
among the poorer sections of rural society, many of whom cannot aff ord, nor have
access to, relevant advisory services.
Th ere is growing recognition that a whole range of diff erent actors and organizations
are required to stimulate widespread local technological development. New
products and processes are brought into local economic and social use through
networks of organizations, which are often referred to in the abstract as the innovation
system. Th e key challenge is not perceived in terms of devising new
technologies, e.g. doing diff erent things, but in bringing about changes in how the
innovation system works, e.g. doing things diff diffff erently (Phila 2005).
DIIS REPORT 2007:4
6
Our comparative analysis of the fi ve reviews listed above draws twelve preliminary
conclusions:
(i) NIF is globally the largest and most advanced ISF. However, although the other
four ISFs are more limited in scope and focus, they can all contribute valuable
experiences, complementary to those of NIF. In our assessment, the eff ectiveness of
investing in innovation support could be enhanced if existing complementary experiences
were exchanged and acted on in a systematic manner.
(ii) ISFs understand innovation as a matter of both processes and products, the
latter varying from hard mechanical implements to soft institutional innovations.
ISFs support both innovators and their links with public institutions and private
entrepreneurs, and groups of rural producers, as platforms for innovations and
as their links with innovators. It is our assessment that all ISFs could benefi t from a
more balanced mix of the two areas of innovation support.
(iii) ISFsâ understandings of who the innovators are varies. NIF celebrates the
qualities of individual, small-scale entrepreneurs with a proven record of being
innovative, while the remaining ISFs place their eff orts in facilitating poor rural
producers and users of innovations to learn to become âresearchersâ in their own
right. It is our assessment that supporting both types of innovator is likely to increase
the development outcomes of ISFs.
(iv) A general lesson learned by all ISFs is that innovations have to be understood
in their context. ISFs currently diff erentiate between innovations on the basis of
the types of issues they are concerned with (e.g. soil and water conservation, biological
pest management, etc.). It is our assessment that it would be useful if the ISFs
could instead distinguish between innovations in relation to (i) the relevance of formal
property rights; (ii) public/private goods; and (iii) market/non-market value.
(v) When using a âlearning selectionâ analytical framework for rural innovations
for development, the focus shifts away from simply understanding innovators
as inventors and rural producers as the users of innovations towards a focus on
how innovations are continuously improved upon through interaction between
the various actors. In our assessment, the facilitation of cycles of â learning selectionâ
involving innovators, entrepreneurs and innovative adopters is a potential area of
activity for ISFs that could contribute to scaling out use and the commercialization
of rural innovations.
DIIS REPORT 2007:4
7
(vi) Understanding capacity development as âthe ability of an organization to
produce appropriate outputs (e.g. services and products) helps clarify the aim of
capacity development eff orts in these ISFs. ISF-supported eff orts are centered on
the one hand on building eff ective mechanisms for identifying, documenting,
vetting and promoting innovations, and on the other hand on ensuring organizational
and fi nancial sustainability.
(vii) Th e ISF funds reviewed here have a decentralized management structure
linked together by a central management unit or committee. Th e Indian NIF
has the most formalized and well-established governance structure, including a
national Governing Board that coordinates activities among the web of independent
organizations, each with diff erent functions and foci. Coordination of activities
is less visible in the case of CIAL and PFI-FFS, as most management decisions
in these organizations are taken at the farmer-group level and at the district-level
networks of these groups. Th e PROLINNOVA concept provides a refreshing mix
of centralized and decentralized decision-making management.
(viii) None of these ISFs have a comprehensive system for monitoring outcomes
and assessing the impact of support activities. Since none of the M&E systems
diff erentiates between diff erent social categories, one potential development impact
of ISF activities has not been documented. ISF documents are also unclear in their
understandings of the social and economic mechanisms through which support
for local innovations result in improved levels of well-being for poor people.
(ix) Th e review reveals a diverse picture of Innovation Scouting, from none or
implied (PROLINNOVA,) via criteria-based (SSPF), the village walks and student
scouts of the NIF, reliance on grassroots âchampionsâ and/or use of extension
workers (FFS), to the structured group innovation process encoded in the CIALs.
Th e use by NIF of students who return to their villages during their vacations to
scout for innovations seems to be a successful approach that may be replicable in
other areas where university students come from rural areas. Th e availability of
comprehensive standardized forms and criteria that the students can easily apply
has contributed to the success of this approach. An unintended side eff ect has
been changes in studentâs own attitudes to rural development.
(x) Most of the funds reviewed made few if any attempts to support any genuine
commercialization of local innovations. Th e exception is NIF, which we found
to be more advanced in this sense. NIF includes both formal and informal sector
DIIS REPORT 2007:4
8
commercialization. While primarily focusing on innovations of a public-good
nature with a view to informal commercialization or information-sharing, NIF has
developed a proven capacity to work with innovations of a rival good or excludable
nature, in other words, those with the potential for commercialization based
on standard or sui-generis IPRs. Th e other funds focus mostly (CIAL) or almost
exclusively (FFS) on non-excludable and non-rival goods. In the latter cases, most
or all the innovations they support are likely to be of a public-good nature.
(xi) Th ree complementary forms of innovation vetting are practiced by the IFSs,
each with their merits. One of the funds reviewed rely on two separate innovation
âreviewâ committees, one âscientifi câ, and one by peers among innovators
(NIF), while another used joint experiments involving both external facilitators
and researchers (CIAL). Vetting by potential users (e.g. rural producers) is widely
practiced in PFI-FFS.
(xii) Th e approach to learning varies within the ISFs, from the highly complex
and elaborate learning programmed for at all levels, through a wide array of
instruments and forums (NIF), to a far more specifi c and scoped adult or joint
learning model (CIAL, FFS), to the rather more amorphous âcollective learningâ
envisioned by the PROLINNOVA concept.
A global innovation facility (GIF) could play a role in compiling existing documentation
of experience, initiating cross-country studies, and assisting in ensuring
that these experiences are made available and exchanged in a systematic manner
among the existing ISFs. Th e mission of such a GIF could be to enhance the effectiveness
of existing ISFs and the global expansion of activities by facilitating
institutional learning, the exchange of experience between existing ISFs and the
provision of technical assistance
Agricultural development among poor farmers in Soroti district, Uganda: impact assessment of agricultural technology, farmer empowerment and changes in opporunity structures
This paper is based on participatory development research carried out in Soroti district of
Uganda with the aim to assess the impact of agricultural development among poor
farmers. The central argument in this study is that a combination of farmer
empowerment and innovation through experiential learning in FFS groups and changes in
the opportunity structure through transformation of LGA staff, establishment of subcounty
farmer fora, and emergence of private service provider, has been successful in
reducing rural poverty. Based on an empirical study of successful adaptation and spread
of pro-poor technologies, the study assesses the well-being impact of agricultural
technology development in Soroti district, Uganda. It further analyzes the socioeconomic
and institutional context under which pro-poor technologies are adopted by
poor farmers
Determinants of Wellbeing Among Smallholders in Adjumani District, Uganda
An ordered logistic regression model was used to empirically establish the quantitative effects of community identified (local) determinants of wellbeing on the level of household wellbeing. The model was fitted to data for a sample of 200 households collected in the last quarter of 2002. The dependent variable, poverty category, has three levels namely poorest =1, Less poor =2, and Better off =3. Fourteen independent variables are used. Results show that households that own less than 5 acreage of land, that are male headed, have a nonagricultural source of income and are actively involved in agricultural development activities have a higher probability (odds) of enjoying wellbeing above any given level. Land ownership seems to be the most important determinant of wellbeing in Adjumani district. Furthermore, owning livestock and having a household head with an education level of secondary school and above are also important determinants of household wellbeing in Adjumani district. We find household wellbeing to be negatively affected by household size, age of the household head and whether any family member has had any long illness although only the age of the household is significant. We recommend deepening of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) and initiation of Universal Secondary Education to increase the education levels of the rural people. We also recommend continued and expansion of community level agricultural development activities, strengthening of the land tenure provisions to enhance access to land and initiation of programs to enhance animal ownership among small holder farmers in Adjumani.Adjumani, poverty analysis, DASS, ordinal logit, Consumer/Household Economics,
Current marketing, supply and demand of agricultural seeds in Zimbabwe
Future agricultural growth in the communal areas of Zimbabwe must come from
intensified land use. This cannot be achieved on any large scale until the needs of
small-scale farmers are met with respect to agricultural technique and supporting
services. Improved seeds are one of the most important techniques in this regard. The
genetic quality of seed determines the potential yield and thus the productivity of
complementary agricultural inputs and crop husbandry practices. Moreover, and this
is of special importance for resource-poor farmers in communal areas, improved seeds
can, if appropriate, make a substantial contribution to productivity independent of
other inputs.
In an African context, Zimbabwe has a reputation for a very high standard of
agricultural research and for a highly efficient private seed industry - the largest of its kind in Africa.
This working paper examines the equity function of seed supply in Zimbabwe, and
analyses the extent to which improved seeds are delivered of the types and quantities
required by communal farmers in a timely manner to appropriate locations, and at
affordable prices.
Standard textbooks on rural development in Africa pay little attention to agricultural
seed in their discussion of input supply systems. Written material on agricultural
research and seed production in Zimbabwe is indeed very limited and scattered. The
information used in this report is primarily based on interviews of key persons within
the industry and surveys in two communal areas, Silobela and Chiduku, covering 70
households.
The author has been a research associate at Zimbabwe Institute of Development
Studies (ZIDS) during the period from 1989 to 1991, involved in a research project
entitled "The Role of the Seed - Prospects for Food Security and Sustainable
Development in Communal Areas of Zimbabwe".
ZIDS has provided a fruitful and highly conducive environment for discussion, for
which I am very grateful. I particularly appreciate the support that I received from
the head of department, Sam Moyo, and research colleagues Ismir Sunga and Roger
Mponde. I am indebted to the ZIDS secretarial, administrative and library staffs for the excellent assistance they have given me
A general extrudate bulk density model for both twin-screw and single-screw extruder extrusion cooking processes
Effects of extrusion parameters and raw materials on extrudate expansion are respectively investigated in a twin-screw extruder and a single-screw extruder extrusion cooking experiments for fish feed, wheat, and oat & wheat mixture processing. A new phenomenological model is proposed to correlated extrudate bulk density, extrusion parameters and raw material changes based on the experimental results. The average absolute deviation (AAD) of the correlation is 2.2% for fish feed extrusion in the twin-screw extrusion process. For the single-screw extrusion process, the correlation AAD is respectively 3.03%, 5.14% for wheat and oat & wheat mixture extrusion; and the correlation AAD is 6.6% for raw material change effects. The correlation results demonstrate that the proposed equation can be used to calculate extrudate bulk density for both the twin-screw extruder and the single-screw extruder extrusion cooking processes
Noise Robustness of a Combined Phase Retrieval and Reconstruction Method for Phase-Contrast Tomography
Classical reconstruction methods for phase-contrast tomography consist of two
stages: phase retrieval and tomographic reconstruction. A novel algebraic
method combining the two was suggested by Kostenko et al. (Opt. Express, 21,
12185, 2013) and preliminary results demonstrating improved reconstruction
compared to a two-stage method given. Using simulated free-space propagation
experiments with a single sample-detector distance, we thoroughly compare the
novel method with the two-stage method to address limitations of the
preliminary results. We demonstrate that the novel method is substantially more
robust towards noise; our simulations point to a possible reduction in counting
times by an order of magnitude
Gut bacteria and necrotizing enterocolitis: cause or effect?
Development of necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) is considered to be dependent on the bacterial colonisation of the gut. With little concordance between published data and a recent study failing to detect a common strain in infants with NEC, more questions than answers are arising about our understanding of this complex disease
- âŚ