AGRICULTURAL NNOVATION

SYSTEM APPROACHES

Mahdi Egie

DIRE DAWA UNIVERSITY

2012
 1

1. Introduction

Agricultural development depends to a great extent on how successfully knowledge is

generated and applied. Investments in knowledge — especially in the form of science and
technology — have been featured prominently and consistently in most strategies to promote
sustainable and equitable agricultural development at the national level. Although many of
these investments have been quite successful, the context for agriculture is changing rapidly
and the process of knowledge generation and use has been transformed as well. It is
increasingly recognized that traditional agricultural science and technology investments such
as research and extension, although necessary, are not sufficient to enable agricultural
innovation. New perspectives on the nature of the agricultural innovation process can yield
practical approaches to agricultural development that may be more suited to this changing
context.

As the context of agricultural development has changed, ideas of what constitutes innovation
have changed, and so have approaches for investing in the capacity to innovate:

- In the 1980s, the “national agricultural research system” (NARS) concept focused
development efforts on strengthening research supply by providing infrastructure,
capacity, management, and policy support at the national level.
- In the 1990s, the “agricultural knowledge and information system” (AKIS) concept
recognized that research was not the only means of generating or gaining access to
knowledge. The AKIS concept still focused on research supply but gave much more
attention to links between research, education, and extension and to identifying farmers’
demand for new technologies.
- More recently, attention has focused on the demand for research and technology and on
the development of innovation systems, because strengthened research systems may
increase the supply of new knowledge and technology, but they may not necessarily
improve the capacity for innovation throughout the agricultural sector.

Six changes in the context of agricultural development heighten the need to examine how
innovation occurs in the agricultural sector.
 2

First, markets increasingly drive agricultural development. For most of the 20th century, major
progress in agricultural development was inextricably linked to major improvements in the
productivity of staple food crops, but this situation is changing. With falling staple food prices
and rising urban incomes, the payoff has shifted to strategies that enhance agricultural
diversification and increase the value added of agricultural production. Despite their past
prominence in driving agricultural development, centralized public research systems are
finding it difficult to cater to this trend.

Second, the production, trade, and consumption environment for agriculture and agricultural
products is increasingly dynamic and evolving in unpredictable ways. If farmers and
companies are to cope, compete, and survive in contemporary agriculture, they need to innovate
continuously. Drivers for innovation include, for example, changing patterns of competition in
local and, in particular, global markets; changing trade rules and the need for continuous
upgrading to comply with them; and changing technological paradigms, such as biotechnology
and information technology and the opportunities and challenges that they present.

Third, knowledge, information, and technology are increasingly generated, diffused, and
applied through the private sector. Private businesses develop and supply a substantial number
of the technologies that farmers use or introduce (examples include seed, fertilizer, pesticides,
and machinery). The role of the private sector is expected to grow with the increasing
intensification of agriculture.

Fourth, exponential growth in information and communications technology (ICT), especially

the Internet, has transformed the ability to take advantage of knowledge developed in other
places or for other purposes. Both the ICT and the biotechnology revolutions have driven home
the fact that many innovations within the agricultural sector—examples include geographic
information systems and global positioning systems—are based on knowledge generated in
other sectors. The question of how to take advantage of new knowledge has become just as
urgent as the question of how to generate and diffuse new knowledge.

Fifth, the knowledge structure of the agricultural sector in many countries is changing
markedly. Thirty years ago, the number of people with postgraduate degrees was very small,
and the number of uneducated farmers and farm workers was in the hundreds of millions. Under
these circumstances, it made perfect sense to create a critical mass of intellectual resources in
 3

a few places, mostly in national agricultural research institutes, to generate new technologies.
Since then, overall and agricultural education levels have increased in many countries. Greater
numbers of experienced and educated people—in the farm community, the private sector, and
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) — now interact to generate new ideas or develop
responses to changing conditions. Technical change and innovation have become much more
interactive processes, which can be led by many different types of actors.

Sixth, agricultural development increasingly takes place in a globalized setting. This change
affects all of the five changes mentioned previously: the domestic market is not the only market
that defines demand, environmental and health issues cross the borders of any country,
knowledge from abroad may be more important than domestically generated knowledge, and
ICT allows information to spread through internationally organized networks of practitioners.
Globalization causes quality standards to be defined increasingly by international markets and
leads small sectors suddenly to confront huge potential demand. It raises the stakes in
agricultural development: success, for example, in the export of nontraditional products may
assume larger dimensions than in a more insular world, but failure to adapt to new conditions
will also have larger consequences and may cause traditional trade patterns to erode rapidly.

Most agricultural production is increasingly integrated in value chains with forward

(marketing) and backward (input supply) linkages. Urban markets often cause supply chains to
grow longer handling requirements, and other market requirements assume greater importance
for agricultural products. Moreover, agricultural production is increasingly based on a wider
range of purchased (or free) inputs — seed, fertilizer, pesticides, machinery, and water — that
must be combined and used judiciously to arrive at sustainable production systems. Each of the
links in these “production-to-consumption” systems provides new opportunities for innovation.

An innovation system may be defined as comprising the organizations, enterprises, and

individuals that together demand and supply knowledge and technology, and the rules and
mechanisms by which these different agents interact. The innovation systems concept focuses
not merely on the science suppliers but on the totality and interaction of actors involved in
innovation. It extends beyond the creation of knowledge to encompass the factors affecting
demand for and use of new and existing knowledge in novel and useful ways. Thus, innovation
is viewed in a social and economic sense and not purely as discovery and invention.
 4

The innovation systems concept is attractive not only because it offers a holistic explanation of
how knowledge is produced, diffused, and used but also because it emphasizes the actors and
processes that have become increasingly important in agricultural development. The scope of
innovation includes not only technology and production but also organizations (in the sense of
attitudes, practices, and new ways of working), management, and marketing changes, therefore
requiring new types of knowledge not usually associated with agricultural research and new
ways of using this knowledge. Ways of producing and using knowledge must also adapt and
change. The innovation systems concept emphasizes adaptive tendencies as a central element
of innovation capacity.

2. Systems Thinking

Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another within a
whole. In nature, systems thinking examples include ecosystems in which various elements
such as air, water, movement, plants, and animals work together to survive or perish. In
organizations, systems consist of people, structures, and processes that work together to make
an organization healthy or unhealthy.

Systems Thinking has been defined as an approach to problem solving, by viewing "problems"
as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to specific part, outcomes or events and
potentially contributing to further development of unintended consequences. Systems thinking
is not one thing but a set of habits or practices within a framework that is based on the belief
that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with
each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation. Systems thinking focuses on cyclical
rather than linear cause and effect.

In science systems, it is argued that the only way to fully understand why a problem or element
occurs and persists is to understand the parts in relation to the whole. Consistent with systems
philosophy, systems thinking concerns an understanding of a system by examining the linkages
and interactions between the elements that compose the entirety of the system.

Science systems thinking attempts to illustrate that events are separated by distance and time
and that small catalytic events can cause large changes in complex systems. Acknowledging
that an improvement in one area of a system can adversely affect another area of the system, it
 5

promotes organizational communication at all levels in order to avoid the silo effect. Systems
thinking techniques may be used to study any kind of system — natural, scientific, engineered,
human.

2.1. Major systems premises

A system is a set of parts that behave in a way that an observer has chosen to view as
coordinated to accomplish one or more goals. The concern here is an observer’s choice
of parts to study. It is best not to think that systems are real. The system properties are:

1. Holism – S yst em s based methodologies are based on the assumption that the world can
be viewed as consisting of structural wholes o r systems that maintain their identity or
integrity under a range of conditions and that exhibit certain general properties emerging from
their wholes.

2. Transformations – Inputs to a system are transformed through major functions that can
be described or developed; as a result of transformation an output from the system is
produced.

3. Control – systems are conceived as having the capacity to maintain key components
within an appropriate range of values in the face of external disturbance.

4. Communication – is related to a system’s ability to communicate information in order

to control what happens within a system and the forces that come out from without.

5. Hierarchy – the notion of hierarchy of systems (sub-systems) is the systems version of

reductionism to its properties of components.

Example: individuals----- populations---- communities---- ecosystems

(lowest) (highest)

6. Emergent properties – In systems it is often said that the whole is different from the sum
of its parts. That difference is the emergent property and, in any give hierarchy, emergent
 6

properties uniquely pertain to particular hierarchical levels. In going up the hierarchy, the
emergent properties at lower levels will disappear.

Systems ideas also provide a way of thinking about numerous problems; hence systems
thinking is not generally a discipline in itself. It is, however, utilized by a number of scientists
of various disciplines.

2.2. Systems Typology

Systems are classified as:

A) Natural systems – associated with the origin of the universe. They are systems not other
than they are/unchanged/, are evolution - made, irreducible wholes.

B) Designed physical systems – made by man, which are designed for a purpose

C) Designed Abstract Systems – structured set of thoughts representing the conscious output
of human mind. Eg. AKIS.

D) Human activity systems – less tangible than the natural and designed systems. Eg.
political, economic and social systems

2.3. Systems thinking approaches

Over the years, a number of approaches have been developed to use systems thinking and
improve our capability to manage and improve systems. Here, I describe two generalized
approaches: “hard systems” and “soft systems” approaches. In general, I can say that the “soft”
systems approach is a learning process designed to determine what needs to be done in an ill-
defined problem situation, and “hard” systems approaches are used to determine how to make
improvements to a better-defined problem.

Hard systems approach

 7

Hard systems approach is an approach to real-world problems in which an objective or end-to-

be-achieved can be taken as given. Then, to meet or achieve the objective, a system is
engineered. The distinguishing characteristic of all hard systems thinking is the belief that all
real-world problems can be formulated in the following way: there is a desired state (S1) and a
present state (S0) and there are alternative ways of getting from S0 to S1. Problem solving
according to this view consists of defining S1 and S0 and selecting the best means or ways of
reducing the difference between them. In systems engineering (S1-S0) defines the need, or the
objective to be attained, and systems analysis provides an ordered way of selecting the best
among the alternative systems which could fulfill that need or objective. Problems of this kind
are called hard problems or structured problems. A relevant point in hard systems thinking is
that the problem is structured: there is a gap in between the desired future state and the present
state; how to make the gap disappear is the problem.

Thus, the “hard” systems approach was developed to maximize the “efficiency” of a system in
terms of amount of output per given input. It is an approach which begins with the definition
of the system and the measure of efficiency, and then proceeds by looking for technical
solutions to optimize the system. When a new system is designed, the outputs and measures of
efficiency are compared with the old one. The hard systems approach is often one of
quantification (often quantitative “models” are developed as part of the system description).

Examples: The ICRISAT micro-watershed program, a system of field-level water catchments

and cultivation methods such as “tied ridging” were designed to improve water use and
production in semi-arid areas. Measures of efficiency were amount of crop produced per
rainfall amount and per area. However, the suggested “improved system” was rarely adopted,
as farmers found that the benefits did not outweigh the difficulties and increased labor
requirements of the cultivation methods recommended.

Hard systems thinking makes use of the kind of thinking which is natural to design engineers.
The role of a design engineer is considered to be to provide an efficient way of meeting a
defined need. The design engineer works in a situation where what is required has been defined,
his job is to examine how it can be provided. He typically works with finding and providing
answers to the question: How?
 8

Hard systems approaches (structured methods) assume that:

- the problems associated with such systems are well-defined
- they have a single, optimum solution
- a scientific approach to problem-solving will work well
- technical factors will tend to predominate

Soft systems approach

Recognizing the difficulty associated with learning about and improving complex “real world”
situations, Checkland and his colleagues at the University of Lancaster in the UK developed
what they termed “soft systems methodology” or SSM. Adaptations of this methodology have
increasingly been advocated and used in environmental management and rural development
projects.

One of the main sources of learning using SSM occurs when we compare the current situation
- the existing ‘what’ - and the future vision - the ideal ‘what’. In SSM the existing ‘what’ is
visualized in a situation summary (or “rich picture”, because it includes diverse elements and
viewpoints) and the future vision in a conceptual model. It is only after making these
comparisons that discussion of how things could be improved occurs. Learning occurs with
each cycle of the SSM activities. One of the important features of SSM is its focus on repeated
cycles of learning to arrive at new and better appreciations of complex situations.
 9

It is designed to shape interventions in the problematic situations encountered in management,

organizational and policy contexts, where there are often no straightforward ‘problems’ or easy
‘solutions.’ Though informed by systems engineering approaches, it breaks with them by
recognizing the central importance of perspective or world-view in social situations. It differs
significantly from the ‘systems science’ approaches developed in the 1960s, and is more
reflective of action research in its philosophy and approach.

SSM Process

SSM is widely described as a seven-stage process, as follows:

1. Identifying the problematic situation that it is desired to intervene in
2. Researching the situation and building a 'rich picture' (interpretive representation) of it
3. Selecting perspectives and building 'root definitions' (key processes that need to take
place within the desired system)
4. Developing a conceptual model of the change system
5. Comparing the model with the real-world situation
6. Defining the changes to be implemented
7. Taking action.

This can be can be treated as an ongoing cycle or action research project, returning to stage 1
or 2 after the intervention has had time to take effect. More recently a four-stage representation
of SSM has emerged that incorporates the above stages and adds some further refinements. The
description below more-or-less follows that in Learning for Action, a recent definitive account
of SSM (see ‘further reading’ below).

Stage 1: Finding out

The first part of this stage is concerned with identifying and providing a brief description of
the situation it is desired to intervene in. This is normally done by those involved in or affected
by the issues coming to a broad agreement about the situation that needs attention. Care should
be taken not to formulate the issue as a problem to be solved, as that can lead to too narrow an
approach at too early a stage.
 10

The second part involves developing the ‘rich picture’. The purpose here is to build up a deep
representation of the situation in which intervention is desired. Part of this will involve
information about and views on issues that have suggested an intervention, but the ‘rich picture’
should be much wider than this and describe the overall situation. A variety of methods can be
used to gather information ranging from formal research techniques to unstructured and
serendipitous approaches; the advantages of the ‘rich picture’ is that it draws together
information and perspectives from the widest possible range of sources. It is usual to represent
the picture visually - often with several alternative depictions - rather than just as text.

The third part consists of three analyses of the people-dimension of the situation:
1. Who are the key players in the situation and what worldviews or perspectives do they
bring to bear on it? This should identify the ‘client’ who will cause the intervention/s
to happen, the ‘practitioner’ who will use or guide the SSM process, and the ‘owners’
of the issues addressed. These may be the same people.
2. What is the cultural environment of the situation? In particular what roles, norms and
values help shape the situation?
3. How is the situation affected by politics or power relations? What sources of power are
important in the situation? How is power obtained, used, challenged, defended, passed
on, given up etc?

These analyses, particularly 2 and 3, are likely to develop further as the project progresses. It’s
important not to treat them purely as constraints, as anything other than straightforward
technical interventions are likely to change aspects of power relations and possibly the culture
as well. It’s equally important not to work across them as they can act as powerful levers for
maintaining or reestablishing the status quo.
Stage 2: Modeling

This stage is concerned with producing definitions of transformation processes that should
achieve the desired intervention(s). The first step is to agree what the change needs to be. This
inevitably involves a perspective or perspectives from which it is desirable - which should be
stated clearly as it can form an important part of the dialogue in stage 3.
 11

At this point it can be useful to carry out a ‘CATWOE’ analysis, which will draw in part on the
Stage 1 analysis. CATWOE is a mnemonic for:
- Customers (and other stakeholders), i.e. people who are affected by the transformation
- Actors, i.e. the people who perform the activities in the transformation
- Transformation process, stating what is changed and to what
- World-view or perspective from which the transformation is meaningful
- Owner(s), i.e. the person or people who control the transformation
- Environmental / external factor, i.e. anything that constrains the transformation.

Most change projects consist of more than one transforming process, and the above analyses
can be applied both at the level of the overall change and (where it differs) for each process. In
SSM each process is normally described in the form of a ‘root definition’ - a short paragraph
or long sentence in the format “Do action P (what), using method Q (how), to (help) achieve
result R (why).”

Having identified key transformation processes they should then be checked for workability
and appropriateness. Checkland et al use the ‘three Es’ criteria:
- Efficiency
- Efficacy (will it produce the desired result?)
- Effectiveness (at an overall level, does it achieve what’s needed)?

The final steps are to put the processes together into an overall conceptual model of the change
‘system,’ identify any meta-processes needed to manage the overall transition, and develop
them into project plans. I normally prefer to start with the overall model and develop individual
processes iteratively. I also find that it’s usually premature to move into too much detail until
after the dialogue stage: it’s pragmatically inefficient if changes are needed, and it can also
give an impression to colleagues.

Stage 3: Dialogue

Conceptually the dialogue stage involves examining the change model against the real-world
situation, usually as represented by the rich picture and associated analyses, and checking that
it makes sense. Often the change model needs adjusting, and sometimes the rich picture needs
to be developed further.
 12

The other, important function of this stage is to develop a common understanding of the change
and the change processes among the key actors and stakeholders involved. The structure from
stages 1 and 2 - the rich picture, the 3-part analysis, CATWOE, root definitions, 3 Es - can be
very useful in focusing this dialogue and enabling useful modifications to emerge, provided
they are not presented to the uninitiated in SSM-speak. The dialogue phase should be looking
for ‘accommodation’ or broad acceptability, not total consensus which may be impossible to
achieve because of participants’ differing perspectives. However my experience is that if there
are heartfelt issues left unresolved at this stage they will resurface later and may derail or
undermine the project, or prevent the change from becoming embedded. The aim should
therefore be to out any serious reservations and seek to take account of them; this often involves
exploring the assumptions and perspectives behind them, and looking for higher-order
solutions that go beyond compromise.

Stage 4: Defining and taking action

This stage will vary depending on the specific change project, but essentially it involves
developing the (revised) change model into a concrete plan, and taking action to implement it.
At this point formal project management protocols may be useful or a less structured approach
could be appropriate.

While some change projects may be one-off interventions, it is more usual to think of the SSM
process as cyclic in nature. In many projects an intermediate or short cycle is appropriate, where
transition processes are re-examined in the light of early implementation and adjusted as
necessary (i.e. returning to stages 2 and 3). This necessarily involves monitoring and
investigation, if not always in a formal way, to keep track of the effects of the project: in this
sense it is a basic form of action research. When the effects of implementation are becoming
apparent it is possible to return to stage 1 and map (and reflect critically on) how the rich picture
has changed and whether the overall nature of the situation has changed in any way. In large-
scale or open systems as one change takes effect another problematic situation often comes to
the fore, pointing to an ongoing set of processes rather than distinct interventions.
 13

Assumptions of SSM
1. It is the process of managing, taking a particular view on what managing is and what
a knowledge manager does. Anyone who is a manager in any field of activity is
reacting and trying to cope with an ever-changing flux of interacting events and ideas.
Managing means reacting to the flux: perceiving and evaluating it, deciding up on
action which itself becomes part of the on-going ideas/events in flux, leading to new
perceptions and evaluations and further actions.
2. Given the above broad view of meaning SSM assumes that different individuals,
being relatively autonomous, make different evaluations leading to different actions.
The manager has to hope with these differences.
3. The systems ideas are helpful in consciously articulating the processes of knowledge
management.
4. The concept of SSM is largely rooted in that of the “designed & natural” systems.
The concepts of those systems lack adequacy in describing the complex human
situations, since there will be multiple possible descriptions of any named real-world
purposeful action and any description of purposeful activity will have to be explicit
concerning assumptions about the world.
5. SSM learns by comparing pure models of purposeful activity (in the form of models)
with perceptions of what is going on in a real world problem situation.
6. SSM is an articulation of a complex social process in which assumptions about the
world- the relevant myths and meanings as well as logic of achieving purposes that are
 14

expressed in the systems models- are teased out, challenged and tested. This makes the
methodology having a real participatory nature.

To conclude, soft systems thinking:

- stimulates imagination of actors to enable them improve their performance,
- does not totally reject the idea of hard systems but subsumes it and
- helps to reduce uncertainties of knowledge in decision making for instance by sharing
perceptions

Distinctions between Hard and Soft systems thinking

We can summarize the above by saying that hard systems thinkers take the world as being
systemic. They consider systems to exist and to have a clear purpose and well-defined
boundaries. Negotiations on the purpose of the system or its boundaries are not searched for.
Hard systems analysis is useful in the case of mechanical or relatively simple administrative or
biophysical problems and is thus concerned with settings in which clear-cut goals can be set,
performance maintained and implementation achieved. Hard systems thinkers experience
biophysical but also social phenomena as constant, regular, reoccurring and predictable.

Soft systems thinkers argue that problems will occur when hard systems thinking is applied to
problem situations in which human perceptions, behaviour or action seem to be dominating
factors and where goals, objectives and even the interpretation of events are all problematic. A
soft systems thinker experiences phenomena, including the social ones, as dynamic, chaotic,
changing and unpredictable. Soft systems thinkers do not take the world to be systemic but
think it is sometimes useful to deal with it as if it were systemic. They consider soft systems to
be deliberate or negotiable social constructs, in that soft systems exist only to the extent that
people agree on their goals, their boundaries, their membership, and their usefulness.
These differences between the hard and soft systems thinking are summarized in the following
table

Hard system thinkers Soft system thinkers

Philosophical approach Positivist Constructivist
 15

Ontological position (about Reality exists Multiple perceptions of reality

the form and nature of Systems do exist and do have a Systems do exist only to the extent
reality) clear purpose and well-defined that people agree on the goals, the
boundaries boundaries and their components
Epistemological position Observations are not colored by Neutral observations are
(about the relationship subjective aspects of the impossible
between the researcher and scientist or his/her instruments
the researched)
How are phenomena Biophysical and social Biophysical and social phenomena
experienced? phenomena are experienced as are experienced as dynamic,
constant, regular, reoccurring chaotic, changing and
and predictable unpredictable
Research design Strong focus on the testing of Less focus on the use of
hypothesis hypothesis
Focus on the use of quantitative Focus on the use of qualitative
methods methods
Focus on improving current Focusing on how to realize a
problem desired future situation
Purpose Objective knowledge Socially constructed knowledge to
Generalizations increase our understanding for
Maximizing efficiency more effective action
Particularities or generalizations
for one particular context
Innovations
 16

3. INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge, which can be defined as organized or processed information or data, is

fundamental in the pursuit of innovation. Such knowledge can be tacit or codified; indigenous
or scientific, depending upon how and where it is acquired.

In managing multiple farming activities, farmers rely on their intimate knowledge of the local
situation. Most of the local agricultural practices that proved to be non-sustainable have not
survived. Other traditional practices that sustained human populations for centuries became
obsolete as conditions changed. This is often referred to as "Indigenous Knowledge" (IK): the
ideas, experiences, practices and information that either have been generated locally or are
generated elsewhere but have been transformed by local people and incorporated into their way
of life. IK is deeply embedded in the local cultural, social and economic context. It is not
abstract like scientific knowledge; it is concrete and relies strongly on intuition, historical
experiences and directly perceivable evidence.

For example, traditional agriculture is based on indigenous knowledge and practices. It is

generally oriented to subsistence, uses resources available locally and makes little use of
external inputs. Traditional agriculture is highly varied, as it depends on site-specific ecological
and cultural factors. Confronted with rapid changes such as increasing population pressure and
greater need for cash, farmers practicing traditional agriculture are not always able to increase
productivity sufficiently. They may, therefore, expand farming into marginal areas, which
increases the risks of over-exploitation, erosion and other forms of environmental degradation.

The term scientific knowledge is attributed to some facts and principles that are acquired
through the long process of inquiry and investigation. The investigation takes a long time
because it goes through various aspects to come to a conclusion and the aspects include all the
laws, theories, concepts and models. It is a kind of knowledge that is acquired by the systematic
study and is organized in accordance with some general principles. Cognizance of a fact or
phenomenon acquired through scientific method. Four factors are essential to the classification
of an item of information as scientific knowledge: (1) independent and rigorous testing, (2)
peer review and publication, (3) measurement of actual or potential rate of error, and (4) degree
of acceptance within the scientific community.
 17

Realizing that IK differs from the formal scientific knowledge system is the starting point of
technology development. The differences between the two knowledge systems are due to
differences in concepts, tools, skills, environments and priorities. IK is not static, nor does it
depend only on local ideas. The community also absorbs, transforms and internalizes ideas
from outside, so that they become a part of their IK. Respecting IK is the key to partnership, as
it gives dignity to the local farmers and puts them on an equal footing with the outsiders
involved in the process of technology development.

The problem with agricultural science and extension is that it has poorly understood the nature
of "indigenous" and rural people's knowledge. Many scientists tend to look at their scientific
knowledge as universal, generally applicable and superior to farmers’ knowledge. Hence, they
regard themselves as experts and others as laymen. Moreover, what rural people know is
assumed to be "primitive," "unscientific," or overtaken by development, and so formal research
and extension must "transform" what they know so as to "develop" them. An alternative view
is that local knowledge is a valuable and underused resource, which can be studied, collected,
and incorporated into development activities. It is more important to recognize that local people
are always involved in active learning, in (re)inventing technologies, in adapting their farming
systems and livelihood strategies. Understanding and supporting these processes of agricultural
innovation and experimentation have become an important focus in facilitating more
sustainable agriculture with its strong locality-specific nature.

The problem with modem agricultural science is that technologies are finalized before farmers
get to see them. If new technologies are appropriate and fit a particular farmer's conditions or
needs, then they stand a good chance of being adopted. But if they do not fit and if farmers are
unable to make changes, then they have only the one choice. They have to adapt to the
technology, or reject it entirely.

There was also increasing recognition of the value of indigenous (or traditional) knowledge for
informing scientific understanding of agriculture and natural resources and for guiding
effective local interventions. The emphasis on indigenous knowledge, on understanding
institutions and on practical and sustainable interventions all made it imperative for the
researchers and the local people to be jointly engaged in learning.
 18

4. Innovation and Attributes of Innovation

An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other

unit of adoption. The perceived newness of the idea for the individual determines his or her
reaction to it. If the idea seems new to the individual, it is an innovation. Newness in an
innovation need not just involve new knowledge. Someone may have known about an
innovation for some time but not yet developed a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward it,
nor have adopted or rejected it. The "newness" aspect of an innovation may be expressed in
terms of knowledge, persuasion, or a decision to adopt.

Technological innovations

A technology is the application of knowledge for practical purposes, or it is a design for

instrumental action that reduces the uncertainty in the cause-effect relationships involved in
achieving a desired outcome. A technology usually has two components:
1. a hardware aspect, consisting of the tool that embodies the technology as material or
physical objects (which is disseminated through production and distribution), and
2. a software aspect, consisting of the information base for the tool to use (which is
disseminated through training).

We often think of technology mainly in hardware terms. Indeed, sometimes the hardware side
of a technology is dominant. But the software component of a technology is often not so
apparent to observation, and we should not forget that technology almost always represents a
mixture of hardware and software aspects.

The innovation-decision process is essentially an information-seeking and information-

processing activity in which the individual is motivated to reduce uncertainty about the
advantages and disadvantages of the innovation. For the sake of clarity, we need to distinguish
between the two kinds of information with respect to a technological innovation:

1. Software information, which is embodied in a technology and serves to reduce uncertainty

about the cause-effect relationships involved in achieving a desired outcome.
2. Innovation-evaluation information, which is the reduction in uncertainty about an
innovation's expected consequences.
 19

The main questions that an individual typically asks in regard to software information are,
"What is the innovation?" "How does it work?" and "Why does it work?" In contrast, the
individual usually wants to know such innovation-evaluation information as, "What are the
innovation's consequences?" and "What will its advantages and disadvantages be in my
situation?"

4.1. Characteristics of Innovations

Diffusion of Innovations takes a radically different approach to most other theories of change.
Instead of focusing on persuading individuals to change, it sees change as being primarily about
the evolution or “reinvention” of products and behaviors so they become better fits for the
needs of individuals and groups. In Diffusion of Innovations it is not people who change, but
the innovations themselves.

The characteristics of innovations, as perceived by individuals, that determine the success of

an innovation.

1. Relative advantage is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the
idea it supersedes. The degree of relative advantage may be measured in economic
terms (better profit or less operation costs), but social-prestige factors, convenience,
and satisfaction are also often important components. It does not matter so much
whether an innovation has a great deal of "objective" advantage. What does matter is
whether an individual perceives the innovation as advantageous. The greater the
perceived relative advantage of an innovation, the more rapid its rate of adoption is
going to be.
2. Compatibility is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with
the existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters. An idea that is
not compatible with the prevalent values and norms of a social system will not be
adopted as rapidly as an innovation that is compatible. The adoption of an incompatible
innovation often requires the prior adoption of a new value system. For example,
higher-yielding crop varieties are sometimes rejected because they do not taste like the
traditional varieties.
 20

3. Complexity is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand

and use. Some innovations are readily understood by most members of a social system;
others are more complicated and will be adopted more slowly. New ideas that are
simpler to understand will be adopted more rapidly than innovations that require the
adopter to develop new skills and understandings.
4. Trialability is the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited
basis. New ideas that can be tried on the installment plan will generally be adopted
more quickly than innovations that are not divisible. An innovation that is trialable
represents less uncertainty to the individual who is considering it for adoption, as it is
possible to learn by doing. For example, new seeds, fertilizers or pesticides can be
purchased in small quantities and tried out in a limited scale.
5. Observability is the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others.
The easier it is for individuals to see the results of an innovation, the more likely they
are to adopt. Such visibility stimulates peer discussion of a new idea, as friends and
neighbors of an adopter ask him or her for innovation-evaluation information about it.
Institutional innovations (e.g. cooperatives or land reform) are more difficult to observe
than technological ones and their rate of adoption is slower.

In general, innovations that are perceived by receivers as having greater relative advantage,
compatibility, trialability, observability, and less complexity will be adopted more rapidly than
other innovations. These are not the only qualities that affect adoption rates, but past research
indicates that they are the most important characteristics of innovations in explaining rate of
adoption.

Farmers’ criteria: Researchers and extensionists often regard agricultural development as a

quest to maximize production. However, this is but one of several objectives pursued by
farmers, even those in well-endowed areas with good access to markets. For this reason, the
priorities of farmers and outsiders and the way they assess new innovations can differ
considerably.

In assessing their interests and needs with regard to innovation, farmers use various criteria,
which may be economic, technical, and socio-cultural, but generally fall in one of the following
two groups:
 21

1. Will I be able to apply the technology?

- What claims does this innovation/technology put on my/our scarce resources, e.g. cash,
labor, water, access to land of certain quality, in what amounts and at what times?
- What external inputs do I need and will I be able to obtain these regularly and at
acceptable costs?
- What preconditions does this technology require, for example, changes in farm
management, cooperation of other family members or/and other families, regular visits
of animal health officer, stable output prices, and is it realistic to expect such conditions
to be met?
2. Do I really want to apply this technology?
- Is it likely to work under my farming conditions? Will I be able to adapt it so that it
better suits my personal needs and my particular circumstances?
- What are the benefits of this technology compared to what I am doing now? How does
it help me to realise my priorities or overcome my biggest problems? Does it create any
new interesting opportunities?
- How certain is it that these benefits will accrue to me, and when? Will these benefits be
permanent or temporary?
- How will others in my family and the community react when I apply this technology?
How would this affect me?
- What other effects will application of this technology have in my farm, within my
family, in the wider community, on the environment?
- Do I like the technology?

Farmers' criteria will vary greatly between households, depending on the productive resources
controlled by the household, its social status in the community etc. Different households
evaluate a technology according to different criteria, which are related to their role and
functions of the household.

The analysis of economic and technical change in agriculture as in other sectors shows that
innovation is a complex social phenomenon. To understand how innovation actually happens,
two concepts are key:
 22

Innovation process: Innovation is the result of a process that follows a sequence of steps.
Innovation theory conventionally distinguishes research, diffusion, and adoption as the three
main phases of any innovation process.

Innovation system: An idea in innovation theory concerns the social organization of innovation.
It builds on the observation that innovation requires different functions, the most important
ones being technology development, communication about problems and potential solutions,
and the adaptation and integration of new ideas into current practice. Every function is equally
important and people need to collaborate to achieve innovation. The organization of this
collaboration can best be analyzed in terms of social systems theory

Innovation originates from interplay between social actors who perceive themselves as
stakeholders in developments in the agricultural sector. Improving performance in agricultural
innovation can be seen equal to improving networking as a social practice. Networking means
investing in a relationship, intensive sharing of ideas, experiences, communication, and
generally mutual adjustments among social actors with respect to ideas, strategies and
practices.

Innovations can take the form of organizations, technologies, institutions, or policies and
involve the extraction of economic, ecological, and social value from knowledge. The process
of innovation further involves putting ideas, knowledge, and technology to work in a manner
that brings about a significant improvement in performance.

Organizational Innovations: efficiency and effectiveness in the operation and management of

agricultural organizations necessitate innovation. These organizations include those that cover
research, extension, education, input supplies, marketing, and collective action (farmer-based
organizations, community-based organizations, and civil society organizations). Innovations
enable organizations to pursue their specified goals efficiently. Such organizations efficiently
manage resources, have built-in capacity-strengthening activities for staff, regularly monitor
and evaluate activities, and occasionally conduct impact assessments in relation to their
mandate to demonstrate the relevance of their operations.
 23

Organizational innovations may involve issues such as capacity strengthening, strategic

planning, priority setting, research and development management, financing, monitoring,
evaluation, and collective action.

Technical Knowledge: although indigenous knowledge plays an important role in innovation,

it alone is insufficient to catalyze the developments required in the complex agricultural system.
Science and research produce new knowledge that can be disseminated along the agricultural
value chain to support innovation processes to increase productivity. Research played a major
role in developing the crop varieties that improve the livelihoods of farmers.

One of the most important agricultural inputs is the seed or planting material on which farming
fundamentally depends. The framework for seed security is availability, access, and quality.
Such innovations (agricultural technologies such as improved seed, chemicals and
biotechnology etc.) reduce hunger and poverty; improve rural livelihoods; and facilitate
sustainable development.

Institutional innovation: constitute laws, regulations, traditions, customs, beliefs, norms, and
other societal nuances that prohibit, permit, or require certain actions. Whether formal or
informal, such institutions are recognized and generally followed by members of the
community. Institutions provide behavioral indicators, order, and stability within the complex
and uncertain world of economic and social interactions. A new, broad-based perspective on
agricultural innovation emphasizes the role of diverse actors, networks, partnerships, and
linkages in the production, dissemination, and use of information and knowledge along the
agricultural value chain. Broader institutions are also relevant, including those related to
agricultural policy and the dynamics of power, given that building the trust necessary to support
collaborative innovation is more problematic when large power differentials exists among
actors.

The institutional setting plays a central role in shaping critical processes for innovation
systems—that is, interactions, knowledge-sharing, and continuous learning to bring about
changes in a desired direction. Partnerships are an important component of institutional
innovation for agricultural growth and poverty reduction. The benefits of partnerships include
not only knowledge and risk-sharing advantages, but also realization of economies of scale in
resource use, exploitation of complementarities of objectives and expertise, and coordination
 24

(realization synergies) advantages. Ideally, partnership should involve all actors and
stakeholders directly involved in the generation, accumulation, dissemination, and utilization
of agricultural technologies.

Policy innovation: policies play a major role in promoting agriculture. There are many
problems that can be resolved and issues that can be facilitated or promoted with policies alone,
removing the need to design specific programs to deal with them. Sound, pragmatic policies
require innovations to ensure their appropriateness, relevance, and timeliness. Through
monitoring and evaluation, policies can be used to rectify programs whose implementation is
faltering. In this way, the need to redesign projects—which would take time and be costly—is
eliminated.

In general it is clear that adequate capacities are needed at all levels to address the
technological, organizational, institutional, and policy problems that face smallholder farmers
in developing countries. While the need to strengthen capacity is recognized, little action has
been taken to address these needs, including identifying specific gaps. Capacity gaps at the
country level should go beyond the basic technical and scientific skills needed to design and
implement research. Organizational and managerial skills are also needed, as is the institutional
capacity to identify, accommodate, and facilitate innovation processes at various intra-country
levels. In addition, system-level capacities need to be identified to encourage and motivate the
development of policies and practices for developing and enabling an environment for
innovation.

At the farmer level, a wide variety of skill sets are needed, including group management;
internal savings and lending; basic business skills; and the ability to access, adapt, and apply
new technologies and to manage natural resources. Group dynamics and leadership are
important skills for individuals at the local level; such skills are also important for extension
agents, NGOs, and others working at the local level through farmer organizations.

Therefore, developing a well-functioning innovation system will require strengthening the

capacity of actors and institutions at the individual, organization, and systems levels. The
importance of continuous investment and a long-term perspective toward capacity
strengthening cannot be underestimated.
25
 26

5. INNOVATION APPROACHES

Innovations are new ideas, practices, or products that are successfully introduced into economic
or social processes. In agriculture, innovation can include new knowledge or technologies
related to primary production, processing, and commercialization, which can positively affect
the productivity, competitiveness, and livelihoods of farmers and others in rural areas.

The agricultural sector of many countries is changing in response to new market opportunities
and productivity requirements, new resource management problems, and new roles assumed
by public, private, and civil society actors. In this context, the pace of change and level of
uncertainty can be considerable. Support to agricultural research and extension systems is
necessary but not sufficient to expand the capacity for innovation in agriculture. New ways of
enabling innovation are required to deliver economic growth and reduce poverty.

As the context of agricultural development has evolved, ideas of what constitutes “research
capacity” have evolved, along with approaches for investing in the capacity to innovate. Most
agricultural production is increasingly integrated in value chains with forward (marketing) and
backward (input supply) linkages as changes occurred in innovation trends in agricultural
production systems resulting in changes in innovation approaches. The three innovation
approaches after 1980s are:

5.1. National Agricultural Research Systems

National agricultural research systems (NARSs), in a given country, comprise public or private
agricultural research institutes devoting full time or partially their activities to agricultural
research and committed to a national research agenda. Generally, the following categories of
such institutions are identified as follows:
i. institutions whose mandate is to carry out research only, such as the NARI (National
Agricultural Research Institute);
ii. higher education institutions devoting their activities to teaching and research: they
are the faculties of agriculture and related disciplines and the faculties of social
sciences and economics of the universities;
iii. technical departments of some ministries, development agencies that carry out some
adaptive research programs; and
 27

iv. NGOs and the private sector.

The international agricultural research centers (IARCs) of the CGIAR are not part of NARS,
(as often found in literature). For obvious reason they are never committed to a national
research agenda. Their focus is on a regional/international level. However, spill-over of their
research is important for NARS as they represent partners to other foreign research institutions.

NARSs effect technological change through a linear model of research, development, and
extension. The system assumes that agricultural knowledge originates from a known source
(the scientific researcher) and flows to an end user (the farmer) in a process that is largely
exogenous and unchanging. The NARS concept focused development efforts on strengthening
research supply by providing infrastructure, capacity, management, and policy support at the
national level.

Many researchers and extensionists still follow the conventional "linear model" of innovation.
According to this view, agricultural innovation is driven by research being the origin of new
technology. Agricultural research is believed to be the only active force pushing the innovation
process by providing technology, while farmers are rather passive receivers, 'adopters' of a
preconceived solution. Thus the innovation process is seen as linear and unidirectional, leading
from research to farm-level change. The linear model is the foundation for the transfer-of-
technology (ToT) concept in research and extension. It has met with considerable criticism in
that it does not take account of the economic, social and institutional conditions under which
innovations actually take place. Observation shows that there are, in fact, several sources of
technology, that research itself is being driven by economic and political forces, and that every
innovation process is bound to specific economic and institutional circumstances.
 28

This top-down model creates a rigid hierarchy which discourages the feed-back of information.
Researchers work independently of farmers and extension workers, resulting in a poor
understanding of farmers and the opportunities and constraints they face. The transfer approach
is fragmented, both institutionally and in terms of disciplines. Research concentrates on
technology and researchers and the extension workers' role is to teach and demonstrate to
innovative 'contact' or 'master' farmers how to use new technologies. Once innovative farmers
have adopted the new technologies, it is assumed that other 'laggards' or 'follower' farmers will
copy them and the technology will diffuse to the majority of farmers.

The farming systems approach

By the mid-1960s, the Green Revolution was beginning to have a major impact on crop
production in parts of Asia and Latin America through the introduction of fertilizer-responsive,
high-yielding varieties of rice, wheat, and maize in favorable and relatively homogeneous
production environments where there was assured soil moisture, good soils, ready access to
cheap fertilizer, and relatively efficient output markets. However such conditions did not exist
in most of Sub-Saharan Africa and in certain parts of Latin America and Asia, and as a result,
these areas were bypassed.
 29

The reductionist approach (transfer of technologies) failed in terms of developing technologies

(the imposition of technologies based only on results from experimental stations) for resource-
poor farmers in less favorable heterogeneous production environments or agricultural areas.
This led to the incorporation of a systems perspective in the identification, development, and
evaluation of relevant improved technologies. Hence in the mid to late 1970s, the farming
systems research (FSR) approach evolved, a basic principle of which was the need to create
new types of partnerships between farmers and technical and social scientists.

As a result many argued for that the conventional research paradigm needed to be modified
drastically and replaced by one that would involve farmers as stakeholders from the beginning
of the technology design process and that would use an interdisciplinary approach. Thus
momentum developed for the evolution of a new approach based on changing from a “top-
down” (“supply-driven”) approach to farmers, to one characterized as being “bottom-up”
(“demand-driven”) from farmers.

The farming systems approach was based on the notion that researchers had to begin with
understanding the problems of farmers from the perspectives of farmers; and that solutions had
to be based on a proper understanding of farmers’ objectives and their environments, including
both biophysical and socioeconomic. This notion meant farmers’ inputs were essential in the
technology development and evaluation process. Key features of farming systems research
were a whole system approach to the analysis of farming contexts, collaborative research
involving scientists from a range of biophysical and social disciplines, and partnerships
between farmers and scientists.

The application of farming systems research has resulted in the development of flexible
technological options rather than standardized packages for farmers. However, the application
of the farming systems approach has been limited by the difficulty of coping with diversity in
farming contexts. Diversity in farming contexts means that the results of field work can be
highly location specific thereby decreasing the potential multiplier effects of developmental
efforts. In other words, the set of criteria used to define a typology of farming systems are only
a sub-set, at best, of the set of criteria that determine adoption.
The diversity in farming contexts creates pressure to classify farms into typologies which can
be used to help set priorities and directions for research. The question of coping with variety in
 30

farm contexts becomes, at least in part, a matter of finding meaningful ways of classifying
farms into typologies. Diversity in farming contexts also creates pressure to develop
appropriately flexible technological solutions.

Expressed another way, diversity in farming contexts creates a need for procedures to recruit
farmers from a relevant range of contexts to participate in adaptive research activities. Such
recruitment is essential to ensuring that the adaptive research process yields a sufficiently rich
variety of adaptations of the initial prototypical technology. While a range of techniques and
procedures have been developed to facilitate farmer participation in ‘adaptive’ research, few
techniques or procedures appear to have been developed that allow researchers to
systematically identify in collaboration with farmers the diversity in contexts relevant to the
development of a technology.

The resolution of these issues lies in constructing a conceptually sound procedure for
classifying farms within a farming system into categories that are meaningful with respect to
the adoption of an innovation. Farms are classified into farming systems to facilitate
identification of a constraint that is shared by most farms in that system. The next step is to
classify farms within a farming system into groups based on the variety of contexts into which
a proposed solution to that constraint must ‘fit’ or be adapted. This needs to be done bearing in
mind the possibility that the solution to a constraint in one farming system may also offer a
solution to a different constraint in another farming system.

Farming Systems Research expanded enormously in the 1980’s. Multidisciplinary FSR teams,
comprised of research, extension and other personnel, work with farmers to identify problems
and constraints and then create, adapt and test alternative solutions. Solutions are matched to
specifically characterized, yet diverse biophysical environments and socioeconomic conditions
of farm households and their fields called Recommendation Domains.

FSR field teams identify problems and constraints of farmers in Research Domains through
rapid survey techniques designed specifically for this purpose. Farmers participate in a search
for and testing of options and as much work as possible is carried out on farms rather than on
experiment stations. Because of continued farmer participation, and because research and
extension activities are combined rather than separated, communication problems are reduced
and the lag from problem identification to technology adoption is minimized. In this way, FSR
 31

is a complement to community adaptation, learning and diffusion, which historically has been
important in agricultural technology innovation and change for a schematic representation of
this methodology.

Combine professionals from biological, social, physical and economic backgrounds into
smoothly functioning multidisciplinary teams capable of using limited time and other resources
in a systematic, farmer participatory approach to identifying and solving rural family livelihood
problems and disseminating relevant information to improve the overall welfare of these
families while maintaining the diversity and sustainability of their systems.

Three of the methodological innovations were as follows:

- The development of participatory rural appraisal (PRA) techniques provided a way of
responding to three concerns namely: how farmers interpreted their production
situations; how this influenced the way they articulated their constraints and needs to
researchers; and the desire for farmers to contribute more directly and creatively to the
design and evaluation of new technologies. Basically, PRA techniques improved the
potential usefulness of farmers’ participation not only from the farmers’ but also from
the researchers’ perspective by improving systematization of farmers’ knowledge and
opinions. Thus researchers could move from working relationships with farmers that
were contractual or at best consultative to those that were more consultative and
collaborative.
- Techniques for examining intra-household relationships also evolved and as a result
increased sensitivity to gender issues. This helped dispel the notion that the farming
household was a single decision making unit in which all persons benefited equally
from the fruits of technological change.
- Significant progress also was made in developing more appropriate methods to analyze
the results of on-farm research and make recommendations based on them. Two
approaches that deserve special mention are: adaptability (formerly, modified stability)
analysis which has proved to be a particularly valuable statistical tool for analyzing
results of on-farm trials, particularly those that involve farmer implementation, or both
farmer management and implementation; and PRA techniques – especially matrix
ranking and scoring -- which have enabled farmers’ evaluative criteria to be
systematically taken into account not only in designing on-farm trials but also in
evaluating their results.
 32

As a result of these methodological innovations, the potential usefulness of farmer participation

in all phases of the research process, from problem identification to technology design,
development, and evaluation, has been improved. However, there have also often been
institutional changes to encourage more collaborative and collegial relationships between
farmers and researchers. Other major changes have involved developing technological options
rather than standardized packages for farmers and increased transparency in providing
information on the conditions in which technologies are most likely to fit and perform best (i.e.
targeting information) and suggested fallback strategies if they are not applied in the optimal
manner (i.e. conditional information).

Most current FSR efforts of NARS fall within the whole-farm focus phase of the farming
systems evolutionary ladder, although the degree to which the methodological and institutional
issues are applied varies greatly. However, another major limitation that became increasingly
apparent towards the end of the 1980s related to concerns about ecological sustainability and
environmental degradation.

5.2. Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems

Recent theory emphasizes the social character of innovation. The innovation process is
recognized as a continuous learning process that evolves in cycles, in feedback loops between
farmers (technology users) and the providers of technological services. This process can start
at any point, be it a research idea, a practical farming problem, a market opportunity or a
development project supporting local initiatives.

Another important insight is that technology is deeply embedded in rural social systems.
Adoption depends on the economic and social conditions under which technology users
operate. Whether or not technical change takes place, it depends not only on production
location, markets and resources, but also on the availability of complementary products and
services and on cultural habits and values, and the interests of the various stakeholders.
Technologies are selected and adapted (and even negotiated) to serve these interests. They need
to fit in before they can be applied. Hence, the institutional set-up of a specific commodity
sector or the social relations at a particular location are decisive aspects in explaining change.
 33

Understanding innovation includes analyzing the potential, the incentives and the interaction
of the multiple social actors involved in technical change.

Agricultural knowledge and information systems (AKISs) highlight the linkages among
research, education, and extension in generating knowledge and fostering technological
change. The system focuses on the dynamics of knowledge dissemination through extension
(recognizing that research is not the only means of generating or gaining access to knowledge)
and therefore recognizes a link between researchers and end users. AKIS is a system of people
and institutions that generates, transfers and utilizes agricultural knowledge and information.
The system is characterized by its key subsystems: agricultural education, agricultural research
and agricultural extension." The AKIS perspective tends to be less linear than the NARS
approach. However, AKIS is limited in its consideration of the heterogeneity among agents,
the institutional contexts that condition agents’ behavior, and the learning processes that
determine agents’ capacity to change and innovate.

Therefore, AKIS links people and institutions to promote mutual learning and generate, share
and utilize agriculture-related technology, knowledge and information. The system integrates
farmers, agricultural educators, researchers and extensionists to harness knowledge and
information from various sources for better farming and improved livelihoods.

Rural people, especially farmers, are at the heart of the knowledge and Information System.
Education, research and extension are services – public or private – designed to respond to their
 34

needs for knowledge with which to improve their productivity, incomes and welfare and
manage the natural resources on which they depend in a sustainable way.

A shared responsiveness to rural people and an orientation towards their goals ensures
synergies in the activities of: 1) the knowledge creation subsystem; 2) the knowledge diffusion
subsystem; 3) the knowledge utilization subsystem; and also 4) the agricultural support
subsystem involved in credit, input and market functions. Farmers and other rural people are
partners within the knowledge system, not simply recipients.

On the basis of the above explanation, AKIS is defined as a network of actors (organizations,
institutions, farmers, policy-makers, extension agents, etc...) that are involved in the generation,
transformation, dissemination, exchange, utilization, storage and retrieval of knowledge &
information and are working synergistically towards improving domain of human activities.

Role of research and extension organizations

Agricultural development is a dynamic development process. It implies a shift from traditional

methods of production to new, science-based methods of production that include new
technological components, new crops, and even new farming systems. For farmers to adopt
these new production technologies successfully, they must first learn about them and then learn
how to use them correctly in their farming systems. This process is the essence of agricultural
development, and each step in this process will require an educational and communications
input. Therefore agricultural research and extension, regardless of how it is provided, must be
viewed as an essential component in the agricultural development process.

For a long time the role of extension and communicative intervention was looked on as
transferring and disseminating ready-made knowledge from research to farmers, or from ‘early
adopters’ to other farmers. This is often referred to as the ‘Transfer of Technology’ model of
extension, which fits in with a linear model of innovation. We now look at the role of
communicative intervention in a much broader way. The emphasis is much more on the
facilitation of network building, social learning and conflict management among a variety of
actors with a view to arriving at new innovations. Thus, communication workers are seen as
interacting with a wider set of actors than the knowledge institutions. Nevertheless, it remains
 35

relevant to look at issues like knowledge exchange and links between clients, extensionists,
research and other parties in the agricultural knowledge system.

Research can play a role in joint fact finding geared towards answering shared questions and
reducing uncertainties that affect the innovation process. The purpose of this type of natural
and/or social science research is not only to provide answers, but also to build confidence, trust
and shared perspectives among stakeholders by working together on an issue. The technology
development process in addressing the specific needs of a particular target group of farmers
emphasizes on on-farm activities and farmer participation in all stages of the process.

Research and Extension Linkage

A linkage is two-way communication channel between two subsystems, such as research and
extension. For the agricultural development process to operate efficiently and to benefit
farmers, strong linkages are necessary between researchers, extension agencies and farmers.
Many other organizations and groups also need to be linked into the research-extension-farmer
triangle. These include policymakers, government service agencies, input suppliers, marketing
organizations and NGOs. Appropriate linkages with these groups must be developed to ensure
that research and extension efforts adequately serve the needs of farmers.

The success of these linkages depends on several factors:

- The willingness of participants to contribute actively to the linkage.

- A working relationship based on partnership and mutual trust among the different
groups.
- Activities managed and financed transparently.
- Budgetary support to undertake activities.

Reasons for the need for strong linkages include influencing formulation of research agendas
based on problem identification, and the need to evolve technology suitable for the prevailing
socio-economic and ecological environment. Extension can provide information and facilitate
interaction between researchers and farmers. Simultaneously, extension also requires a
constant flow of information on new and improved practices, necessitating a two-way
communication process.
 36

Importance of the Research-Extension Linkage

The ultimate objective of both research and extension systems is to increase agricultural
production. Their roles of generating and transferring technology are complementary. Research
institutions need to have information on the problems, technology requirements and socio-
economic and ecological environment of producers to formulate research agendas and to set
priorities. Formulating a research agenda based on producers' requirements results in
technology that will be more acceptable to users; this also leads to research institutions
allocating their resources more efficiently. Researchers may also have to interact with
producers on a continuing basis during the process of technology generation. Extension
services can provide research institutions with information on research requirements and play
a mediatory role between farmers and researchers. Extension services require a continuous flow
of information from research institutions on new and improved practices. Therefore an efficient
two-way communication process is necessary for generating and transferring technology
effectively. The success of the two-way communication is determined mainly by the
effectiveness of linkage between research and extension institutions.

The linkage problem

In the absence of clear directions, research or extension personnel concentrate their effort on
those activities which, in their judgment, are considered important. The judgment of these
personnel are influenced principally by their background, experience and training. Usually,
their background and training has not emphasized linkage activities. Often the institutions
themselves give a low priority to linkage, especially when research and extension activities are
administered by separate institutions. As a result, research institutions and personnel consider
strategic research and technology generation to be their 'main activities,' while extension
institutions and personnel consider technology production and dissemination to be their 'main
activity.' In the process, linkage activities are neglected, or considered subsidiary by both.
However, linkage activities cannot be performed in isolation; they require coordination of
personnel from both research and extension functions. The linkage problem is more severe in
cases where research and extension functions are performed by separate public institutions.
 37

In the absence of effective linkage, researchers do not receive enough information about the
environment and resource constraints under which farmers are operating. This is an important
piece of information for research institutions when setting their priorities and goals. Also,
extension agents do not receive the necessary information and cooperation they need from
researchers to adapt and then disseminate new technology. The linkage problems thus cause
disruptions in technology flow and lead to low adoption rates, increased time lags between
development and adoption of new technology, reduced efficiency in the use of resources,
unnecessary competition and duplication of efforts, and increased cost of agricultural research
and extension activities.

Specific Operational Reasons for Poor Linkage

The reasons for poor linkages between research and extension have been categorized into
political, technical and organizational.
Political
This refers specifically to institutional politics, and the different interest groups. There is a lack
of external or internal pressure on institutions and personnel to achieve high levels of
performance. External pressure could come from national policy makers, foreign donors,
farmers or the private sector. Except in exceptional circumstances, such as disease outbreaks,
major crop shortfalls, etc., intervention by national policy-makers is generally minimal. Since
participation of the private sector is insignificant in resource-poor areas, the pressure exerted
by resource-poor farmers on research and extension is also negligible. In the absence of
effective external pressure, the institutions and personnel involved in research and extension
tend to be motivated more by their own social and political needs than by the needs of resource-
poor farmers. This results in extension personnel concentrating what they perceive to be their
main activities, which are likely to make them less integrated with research, while researchers
concentrate more on on-station research than on on-farm research. This tendency to perform
only their 'main activities' leads to neglect of linkage activities.

Adequate resources are lacking to achieve the stated goals. In a resource-limited situation,
linkage activities suffer most, as they have to compete with research and extension functions
to obtain a share of the available resources, which tend to be allocated to 'main activities.' Since
resources are inadequate, the linkage function will probably not be able to attract much funding,
and hence be unable to attract and keep high-caliber personnel.
 38

Technical
Technical reasons relate to specific types of activities and methodologies associated with
technology development and delivery. Research efforts have to be more widely dispersed and
pose more complex technical problems, and hence require more location-specific diagnosis of
problems and adaptation of technology. Well qualified personnel tend to leave such places
soon.

Lack of the necessary infrastructure may force researchers and extension personnel to adopt
alternative technologies which may not be appropriate for the region.

There is lack of flexibility in initiating the various links required for different types of
technology. For example, the types of links required for already established technologies are
different from the links needed for developing and delivering new technologies.

Organizational
Organizational reasons comprise those relating to structural problems, motivational and
incentive problems, resource problems and communication problems.

Structural Problems include:

- the orientation and work style of scientists, who are more oriented towards the general
scientific community and have a longer time horizon compared to extension staff, who
are oriented towards farmers and pressed with immediate concerns;
- poor assignment of specific responsibilities;
- loss of credibility as a result of the diffusion of inappropriate technology; and
- centralization of authority

Motivational and incentive problems: Individuals may have little incentive to perform linkage
activities, made obvious where researchers and extension agents avoid linkage activities such
as adaptive field trials and preparation of written materials for extension agents.

Rewards for journal publication may be higher than those for performing linkage activities.
 39

Resource problems: Sufficient financial resources for linkage functions such as publications,
testing of research results and training of extension workers are often lacking, while there may
be sufficient human resources in the organization but they may not be available for linkage
activities.

Communication problems: There may be wide differences in value systems, educational

backgrounds and communication methods between research and extension workers. Extension
workers perceive researchers as working in ivory towers (as they are considered professionals,
with more academic qualifications and training and therefore given higher status) and
producing technologies which are not useful at farm level. At the same time, researchers
question extension workers' capability to understand research outcomes, to communicate
properly with farmers and to provide valuable inputs.

Infrastructure for communications may be weak or non-existent.

A high turnover of staff makes it difficult to establish long-term relationships.

Linkage becomes effective with a common purpose and commonly perceived advantages for
institutional collaboration. It is facilitated by a common ground or proximity of location,
incentives for individuals, and effective communication and feedback.

Linkage Principles, Types and Mechanisms

Linkage principles

Since research and extension personnel have complementary roles in agricultural development,
the success of each group is determined largely by the effectiveness of linkage activities. Even
where the research and extension functions are located within one institution, linkages between
them are not automatic. Therefore, appropriate mechanisms to strengthen linkages need to be
developed. For developing such mechanisms it is important to understand the principles that
determine the success of linkage activities. Six principles of linkage have been identified:

- a necessary condition for groups or institutions to participate effectively in linkage

activities is that they should share a common purpose (i.e., domain consensus);
 40

- the groups or institutions should perceive that it is advantageous for them to participate
in linkage activities;
- there should be common ground or proximity of location between each group or
institution to facilitate collaboration;
- linkage activities should be compatible with other activities of each group;
- there should be rewards for individuals participating in linkage activities; and
- communication between members of different groups should be effective and there
should be free flow of information between groups.

Types of linkages

Four major types of linkages have been identified, based on ways of communication and
channels of communication.

'Formal' versus 'Informal' linkages: Formal linkages refer to linkages that are specified and
agreed to by organizations. Informal linkages are direct person-to-person contacts, based on
the need for collaboration between individuals. Since informal linkage is an effective and low-
cost method, it should be encouraged along with formal linkages.

'Top-down' versus 'Bottom-up' linkages: In top-down linkage, information flows from

scientists to extension and then to producers. Bottom-up linkages refers to the flow of
information from producers to scientists. Information from farmers is based on their practical
knowledge and helps improve the effectiveness of research programs.

'Internal' versus 'External' linkages: Internal linkages refer to linkages among scientists
working in different disciplines and on different commodities, whereas external linkages are
linkages with major clients, such as farmers, policy-makers, etc. External linkages help identify
gaps in research priority and assess the utility of research programs.

'Downstream' versus 'Upstream' linkages: These linkages are a part of external linkages.
Upstream linkages occur between research and policy making. The aim here is to secure
 41

adequate funding and political support for research. Downstream linkages occur between
researchers and producers, to set research agendas and to establish priorities.

Linkage Mechanisms

Research publications
Examples: newsletters, brochures, folders and booklets
- Contain current information.
- Present research results in simple, easy to understand form.
- Serve as "first-aid" tools for extensionists who encounter problems in farmers' fields.
- Scientific journals are difficult to translate into practical recommendations, so are of
little use to most extensionists.

Regular meetings
Examples: seminars, workshops

- Allow extensionists and researchers to share experiences.

- Allow questions and immediate feedback.
- Can train both researchers and extensionists.

Joint field visits

- Allow researchers and extensionists to see problems and discuss them with farmers.

On-farm research
- Helps ensure that research is appropriate to field conditions.
- Enables extensionists to test and disseminate findings rapidly.
- Helps extensionists appreciate research activities.
- Enables researchers to understand farmer and extension needs.
- Helps researchers become aware of farmers' problems.
- Enables joint problem-solving.
- Allows development of appropriate, location-specific technologies.

Field studies
- Enable researchers and extensionists to study problem over wide area.
 42

- Allow researchers and extensionists to focus on specific topics.

Participatory data gathering

Example. Participatory rural appraisal, situation-specific analysis, RAAKS

- Enables joint identification of problems and potential solutions.

- Allows local people to air problems.
- Develops researchers' and extensionists’ understanding of farmers' situation.

Rapid Appraisal of Agricultural Knowledge Systems

Innovation originates from interplay between social actors who perceive themselves as
stakeholders in developments in the agricultural sector. Improving performance in agricultural
innovation can be seen equal to improving networking as a social practice. Networking means
investing in a relationship, intensive sharing of ideas, experiences, communication, and
generally mutual adjustments among social actors with respect to ideas, strategies and
practices.

In today’s social sciences research, different participating methodologies are existing to

respond to some of the imperfections of linear approach to research and extension system.
Some of these tools of social science research are Farming system research, participatory rural
Appraisal, participatory technology development, RARKS, participatory Action research,
Farmers’ participatory research, etc.

These methodologies have common features in the process of knowledge generation and their
differences are not as such significant. They all emphasize on:

1. Mobilization of indigenous knowledge for planning intervention and policy

formulation,
2. Collective learning in process planning towards solution proposal, and
3. Utilization of information from all categories of formers, organizations and relevant
institutions.

What is RAAKS?
 43

RAAKS has been designed as a participatory action research methodology to bring social
learning issues relevant to innovation and design strategies to improving it in practical
situation. RAAKS procedural design provides an outline of the basic steps and issues to be
addressed in a soft system inquiry that benefits from experiences with rural appraisal and
participatory action research. RAAKS analytical design allows the study of a felt problems and
the social organization of innovation surrounding it, such as a study leads to suggestion of
tangible interventions that can be potentially useful in improving the situation.

RAAKS is intended to help social actors study and suggest improvements in the way they
organize themselves to achieve agricultural innovation. The central elements include team
work, the focused collection of information, group discussion, qualitative analysis and strategic
decision-making.
RAAKS aims at two types of outcomes:
- a more comprehensive understanding of the social organization of innovation in a
particular situation
- interest on the part of social actors in implementing well-probed actions to improve it.

To produce these outcomes, RAAKS is structured into three phases: problem definition and
system identification; analysis of constraints and opportunities; and action planning. Each
phase has steps/windows through which the RAAKS team looks at the different worlds. These
windows have tools for investigation and each tool has list of checklist questions for generating
information from the exercise.

Phase A: Problem definition and system segmentation

During this phase, individual social actors collectively discuss on their problems, their causes
and complexity to prioritize on which problem to apply RAAKS. Objectives will be clearly
defined while simultaneously identifying relevant actors who can potentially contribute to the
RAAKS process. Pre-exercise meeting with officials and community members is important to
get on the line. In an area where RAAKs is not exercised, it is often challenging to get the
process started.

After objectives are defined and actors identified, the relevant actors once again trace on the
diversity of the mission statement. While tracing the mission statement, all actors identified
 44

will forward their expectation from the system. They raise questions like: What can we benefit
from the system? The objective set previously will be revised again. Following this, the social
actors would run environment diagnosis. By then, they are finding out the potential barriers
from the system’s environment that can inhibit/ constrain their missions. That is other factors
or actors should be identified (if any).

After the critical diagnosis of the system’s environment, the problem situation can be redefined
to ensure more and better understanding. Finally, the team will continue to use the analytical
windows of the second phase (phase B).

Phase B: Constraint and opportunity Analysis

In this phase, the main constraints and opportunities of the relevant social actors will be
analyzed with the help of the windows (analytical tools). Each window emphasizes on specific
issues and in some cases it is important to think over the important windows for specific
problems.

Not all windows are chosen for all problems. Indeed, choices of windows are determined by
the nature and complexity of the problem and more importantly by the perception and
understanding of the research team.

Since RAAKs focuses on team building, communication of actors and opportunity creation for
collective learning, the choices of windows can also depend on the team size, the personality
characteristics of actors and the motivation of the participants towards discovery learning.
There are about seven analytical windows of RAAKs in phase B. There are (1) impact analysis
(2) Actor analysis (3) knowledge network analysis (4) integration analysis (5) Task analysis
(6) Coordination analysis and (7) communication analysis. Engel (1995) stressed that none of
the windows provides unequivocal recipe for analysis. On the contrary, each of them has to be
studied, discussed, and if necessary, redesigned before it can be used in the field. Specific plans
will have to be made on how to collect, consolidate and interpret relevant information and how
to make cross- references among different windows.

Phase C: Policy Articulation (Intervention Planning)

One of the objectives of RAAKs is to provide tools to agricultural institutions (especially
researchers and extension organization) in the areas of knowledge generation and information
 45

processing for policy formation, appraisal and implementation. The aim of agricultural research
is primarily to inform policy decision through incorporating the values, beliefs, practices,
attitudes and knowledge of the people affected by the top-level decisions in to the process. In
the Ethiopian context, this seems very ideal given the past and present social and political
complexities on the ground. Here comes the question of exploiting the knowledge of policy
relevant actors.

Generally, RAAKS gives greater emphasis to correlating local knowledge with policy
decisions to make policy implementation more effective and need-based. Depending on the
outcome of phase B, the relevant actors will get committed to invest their time, resources and
efforts in taking actions based on the recommendations of the team work (exercise). In this
case, RAAKs gives more attention to what to implement and why? and less on how to take
action. Since the actors get convinced before strategic commitment on what to do, they will
definitely cooperate during implementation. During commitment they share ideas on who can
do what and why sharing responsibility for later implementation.

5.3. Innovation System Approach

New knowledge and information add value to existing resources, skills, knowledge, and
processes, leading to novel products, processes, and strategies. These innovations are the
changes that lead to improvements in economic and social conditions and environmental
sustainability. Innovation is therefore central to development.

The last 40 years have witnessed substantial debate over the best way for science and
technology to foster innovation. At the risk of oversimplifying a complex reality, two distinct
views may be outlined:

- The first and earlier view is that scientific research is the main driver of innovation,
creating new knowledge and technology that can be transferred and adapted to different
situations. This view is usually described as the “linear” or “transfer of technology”
model.
- The second view, while not denying the importance of research and technology transfer,
recognizes innovation as an interactive process. Innovation involves the interaction of
individuals and organizations possessing different types of knowledge within a
 46

particular social, political, policy, economic, and institutional context. This second
view, increasingly discussed in terms of the “agricultural knowledge and information
system” and “innovation system” concepts.

The conventional pipeline approach to agricultural research, technology development, and

dissemination has produced numerous success stories, but it has serious limitations for broad-
based sustained agricultural growth and poverty reduction.

The innovation system approach has emerged as a holistic tool for understanding and, to a
limited extent, analyzing knowledge and innovation for agricultural growth and poverty
reduction. An innovation system approach considers innovation as a systemic process,
recognizing that innovations can emerge from many sources, complex interactions, and
knowledge flows. This approach involves a network of organizations and individuals focused
on bringing new products, new processes, and new forms of organization into economic use,
together with the institutions and policies that affect the behavior and performance of the
network. The innovation systems approach broadens the NARS and AKIS perspectives by
focusing on (a) the processes by which diverse agents engage in generating, disseminating, and
utilizing knowledge; (b) the organizational and individual competencies of such agents; (c) the
nature and character of their interactions; and (d) the market and nonmarket institutions that
affect the innovation processes. The approach focuses on interactions, knowledge-sharing, and
continuous learning. It addresses novel issues, such as the capacity of individuals and
organizations to learn, change, and innovate; the nature of iterative and interactive learning
processes among innovation agents; and the types of interventions that enhance such capacities
and processes.
 47

Key insights from the innovation systems concept

An innovation system can be defined as a network of organizations focused on bringing new

products, new processes, and new forms of organization into social and economic use, together
with the institutions and policies that affect their behavior and performance. The following
paragraphs summarize 11 analytical insights on the innovation systems concept.
 48

1. A focus on innovation rather than production. In contrast to most economic frameworks,

which focus on production or output, the focus here is on innovation. Innovation is
understood as the application of knowledge (of all types) in the production of goods and
services to achieve desired social or economic outcomes. So, for example, the development
of a new packaging material by a research organization or a company is an invention. In
contrast, a company packaging its product in a new way using new or existing information
is an innovation.
2. Interaction and learning. Innovation is an interactive process through which knowledge
acquisition and learning take place. This process often requires quite extensive linkages
with different knowledge sources. These sources may be scientific and technical, but
equally they can be a source of other forms of knowledge, both tacit and codified. Patterns
of interaction between different knowledge sources form a central component of an
organization’s or sector’s capacity to innovate. Ideas like the creation of science parks are
one response to the need to strengthen the intensity of interaction to promote the process of
innovation.
3. Linkages for accessing knowledge and learning. The relationships that sustain the
acquisition of knowledge and permit interactive learning are critical and can take many
forms. They can be partnerships, for example, in which two or more organizations pool
knowledge and resources and jointly develop a product, or they can be commercial
transactions, in which an organization purchases technologies (in which knowledge is
embedded) or knowledge services from another organization, in which case the relationship
is defined by a contract or license. Linkages may also take the form of networks, which
provide an organization with market and other early-warning intelligence on changing
consumer preferences or technology. Networks also embody the “know who” of knowledge
sources, which can be tapped as the need arises. These linkages and the relationships that
govern them concern knowledge flows. They must not be confused with the linkages and
relationships that govern the movement of commodities through value chains, although
many of the same actors may be involved.
4. New actors, new roles. In the linear model of innovation, especially with respect to
developing country agriculture, public research organizations are the prime movers.
Following this model, scientists have undertaken research, their extension services have
transferred technology, and these roles have remained compartmentalized and relatively
static, even as the external environment has changed (for instance, as the private sector
began to participate more). The innovation systems concept recognizes that (1) there is an
 49

important role for a broad spectrum of actors outside government; (2) the actors’ relative
importance changes during the innovation process; (3) as circumstances change and actors
learn, roles can evolve; and (4) actors can play multiple roles (for example, at various times
they can be sources of knowledge, seekers of knowledge, and coordinators of links between
others.
5. Attitudes and practices that determine the propensity to innovate. The common attitudes,
routines, practices, rules, or laws that regulate the relationships and interactions between
individuals and groups largely determine the propensity of actors and organizations to
innovate. Some organizations have a tradition of interacting with other organizations;
others tend to work in isolation. Some have a tradition of sharing information with
collaborators and competitors, of learning and upgrading, whereas others are more
conservative in this respect. Some resist risk-taking; others do not.
6. Interaction of behavioral patterns and innovation triggers. Attitudes and practices also
determine how organizations respond to innovation triggers such as changing policies,
markets, and technology. Because such attitudes vary across organizations and across
countries and regions, actors in different sectors or countries may not respond in the same
ways to the same set of innovation triggers. Interventions that seek to develop the capacity
for innovation must give particular attention to ingrained attitudes and practices and the
way these are likely to interact with and skew the outcome of interventions.
7. The role of policies. Policy support of innovation is not the outcome of a single policy but
of a set of policies that work together to shape innovative behavior. In evaluating the
effectiveness of policies on innovative performance, investigators must therefore be
sensitive to a wide range of policies that affect innovation and seek ways of coordinating
them. Moreover, policies interact with attitudes and practices, and thus, effective policies
must take account of existing behavioral patterns. For example, the introduction of more
participatory approaches to research is often ineffective unless scientists’ attitudes (and
incentives) are changed. Similarly, food safety regulations might be rendered ineffective if
the agencies charged with enforcing them have a tradition of rent-seeking behavior. Policies
to promote innovation must be attuned to specific contexts.
8. Inclusion of stakeholders and the demand side. The innovation systems concept recognizes
the importance of the inclusion of stakeholders and the development of behavioral patterns
that make organizations and policies sensitive to stakeholders’ agendas or demands.
Stakeholders’ demands are important signals that can shape the focus and direction of
innovation processes. They are not articulated by the market alone but can be expressed
 50

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).
9. Learning and capacity building. The attitudes and practices critical to innovation are
themselves learned behaviors that shape approaches and arrangements and are continuously
changing in both incremental and radical ways. These changes include institutional
innovations that emerge through scientists’ experimentation and learning, such as farmer
field schools or participatory plant breeding. Alternatively a company may start using
research to gain an edge over its competitors. Another example would be organizational
learning to discover that partnering is a key strategy for responding rapidly to emerging
market opportunities. The new ways of working that result from learning enhance the
ability of organizations and sectors to access and use knowledge more effectively and
therefore to innovate. For this reason, the capability to learn to work in new ways and to
incrementally build new competencies is an important part of innovation capacity at the
organization and sector or systems level.
10. Change to cope with change. The classic response of more successful innovation systems,
when they are faced with external shocks, is to reconfigure linkages or networks of partners.
A new pest problem may require new alliances between scientific disciplines; a new
technology, such as biotechnology, could require partnerships between the public and
private sector; or changing trade rules and competitive pressure in international markets
could require new alliances between local companies and between those companies and
research organizations. It is impossible to be prescriptive about the types of networks,
linkages, and partnerships that, for example, agricultural research organizations will need
in the future, because the nature of future shocks and triggers is unknown and to a large
extent unknowable. One way of dealing with this uncertainty, however, is to develop
attitudes that encourage dynamic and rapid responses to changing circumstances.
11. Ability to cope with “sticky” information. A number of key insights discussed above
emphasize that innovation can be based on different kinds of knowledge possessed by
different actors: local, context-specific knowledge (which farmers and other users of
technology typically possess) and generic knowledge (which scientists and other producers
of technology typically possess). In an ideal innovation system, a two-way flow of
information exists between these sources of knowledge, but in reality this flow is often
constrained because information is embodied in different actors who are not networked or
coordinated. In these circumstances, information does not flow easily; it is “sticky.” A
 51

central challenge in designing innovation systems is to overcome this asymmetry—in other

words, to discover how to bring those possessing locally specific knowledge (farmers or
local entrepreneurs) closer to those possessing generic knowledge (researchers or actors
with access to large-scale product development, market placement, or financing
technologies). Ways of dealing with this asymmetry include the following:
a. Encouraging user innovation. For example, as the capacity of the private sector
grows, the private sector will undertake a greater proportion of innovation, because it
possesses the fundamental advantage of knowing the market.
b. Developing innovation platforms for learning, sharing, communicating, and
innovating. The structure of public research systems must adapt to permit a more
open, thorough, and multifaceted dialogue with other key actors identified in the
innovation system analysis.
c. Investing in public research and advisory systems. Such investment must be based on
careful identification of knowledge demands and joint strategic planning with the
multiple stakeholders of the system.

Network and networking

Definition

A network is any group of individuals or organizations who, on a voluntary basis, exchange

information or undertake joint activates and who organize themselves in such a way that their
individual autonomy remains intact.

In this definition, important points are that the relationship must be voluntary, that there are
mutual or reciprocal activities (i.e. exchanges of information or joint action) and that belonging
to the network does not affect the autonomy and independence of the members.

Networking

From the noun network are derived the verb to network and the participle networking.
Networking involves making contacts and encouraging reciprocal information exchange and
voluntary collaboration. Networking should encourage and facilitate the autonomy of
colleagues rather than reinforcing dependency associations.
 52

The definition of a network given here makes it clear that not all information exchange or
collaborative action can be described as networking. Dissemination of information, for
example by television, radio, professional journals, abstracting services, newspapers and
newsletters, is not by itself, networking. Instrument of mass communication can be used by
networks (many networks have newsletters) but they cannot be the sole basis for networks.
Networks are not simply mailing lists, for they are based on mutuality and multi-directional
information exchange.

The need for networks

In an ideal world, development networks would not be necessary, for individuals and
organizations would be well linked vertically and horizontally with colleagues involved in
similar areas (such as research, development, training, extension and infrastructural support).
They would be in touch with reality, policy implication, new research institutes and experiences
in other places. They would be aware of the many technological, socio-economic and
administrative options available for development, and their various advantages and
disadvantages. They would have the resources to undertake their work, and would be able to
collaborate with colleagues whenever this would be beneficial. Governments, organizations
and communities would listen to them when they had recommendations to make.

Clearly such an ideal world is very far away! In reality, the many agents of development live
in very separate worlds. Whatever their aspiration, they are effectively isolated from the wider
experiences of others by the day-to-day problems of survival, repetitive work tasks and local
interaction. This is so whether they be in the field or the office of a non- government
organization (NGO), international research center, government ministry or aid agency
headquarters. Information flows in government and non-government development
organization tend to be top-down and narrow, restricted to single disciplines, limited
geographical areas and the prevailing organizational persuasion.

As a result, when a development’ wheel’ appears to be required, the individuals or

organizations use whatever is immediately to hand, and if necessary redesign or completely
reinvent it. They seldom have the time, vision, experience or facilities to consider whether a
 53

‘wheel’ is actually needed, what ‘wheel’ options are available worldwide and how these could
be obtained locally in the available time.

Networks can help overcome such problems by allowing people and organization to exchange
information and experiences with those outside their immediate working environment and
cooperate with them in a legitimate and non-threatening way.

Network typology

There are many type of network and some people have tried to classify them by their
membership, their geographical scope, their main activities, their objectives and heir
organizational structure. All such classifications have some merit, but the diversity of networks
is such that no system of classification is entirely satisfactory.

Membership criteria

Networks may be designed for, and restricted to, particular categories of people, such as
farmers, researchers or engineers. Some bring together people working at the same ‘level’
(horizontal orientation, e.g. farmer-based networks), while other link those of different ‘levels’
(vertical origination, e.g. those bringing together frames researchers, policy makers and
international agencies). Some networks have individual membership, while other being
together institutions or NGOs. Some are open to all people and organizations interested in the
subject covered by the network.

Geographical scope

Some national network is limited to one area of single country, while others are nationwide.
Some international network are limited to geographical regions (such as West Africa and
Eastern and Southern Africa) or agro ecological zones (such as the Arid Lands Information
Network), while others are global in scope.

Network objectives
 54

Most networks have been established mainly to improve information exchange among
members, and information sharing is a primary objective. Some have been established to allow
collaboration in research, training or marketing. Some network aim to exchange materials (e.g.
seeds for planting or prototype implements). Other exists to be pressure groups, to raise public
awareness of issues and influence national or international polices in their area of interest.
Many networks have multiple objectives, combining information exchange among members
with practical coloration in training and research and some public relations attributes.

Network management

Some networks are formal and highly centralized, with most communications passing through
a strong, central secretariat. Others are informal and decentralized, and emphasize direct
communication between members. Informal networks generally arose as ‘grass roots’ or
‘bottom-up’ organizations that been formed as a result of user need. They have a tendency to
aspire to, and sometimes evolve into, more centralized networks.

Misuse of the term ‘network’

Some formal centralized ‘networks’ which have arisen as a result of top-down planning by the
international research centers, aid agencies or NGO that fund them are not true network based
on the active participation and interaction of autonomous members. Some single-institution
outreach programs have, in reality, been dissemination units for information (in the worst cases,
propaganda), technology or materials. Some have provided the parent instruction with multi-
country research or technology evaluation facilities, through a series of bilateral relationships
that did not attempt to link the various clients. They have employed the term ‘network’ for
public relations purposes. This is an abuse of the network concept that should be strongly
discouraged.

Electronic networks

The development and spread of electronic mail has allowed people to participate in e-mail
discussion grousp and electronic workshops. Simple list-server software allows an e-mail
message sent by one person to be relayed to all members of an agreed discussion group. People
 55

have the option of replying in front of the whole group (allowing public discussion) or may
respond directly (allowing bilateral dialogue).

E-mail discussion groups have many network characteristics. People of different background
working in range of countries voluntarily join such groups. They share information and interact
with other people of similar interests. Discussions can be spontaneous, or they can be
moderated. Specific electronic workshops can be held over periods of weeks or months, to
analyze issues in depth. Members of electronic networks and discussion groups may arrange
other activates and face-to-face discussions from time to time, or they may simply interact
electronic electronically.
 56

Figure: Some network models

Benefits of networks

Depending on their specific objectives, membership and activities, networks orientated towards
development provide benefits in several interrelated ways. Some immediate and rapid benefits
of the network are likely to be reflected in the work of the network members. Longer-term
benefits become apparent as development and research programs become more effective,
know-how is transferred and systems evolve.
- Network facilitates the exchange of information, skills, knowledge, experiences,
materials and media, through meetings, workshops, publications and cooperative
programs. Sharing of skills and experiences increases the overall competence of
network members, whether individuals or organizations.
- Network information exchange and coordination leads to less duplication of work and
effort. With less duplication, faster progress and a wider overall impact should be
possible.
- Network can effectively link people of different levels, disciplines, organizations and
backgrounds who would not otherwise have an opportunity to interact. For example,
they can bring together top policy makers and farmers, agricultural engineers and
animal scientists, NGO development workers and staff of large-scale technical
cooperation projects, researchers and extension staff, university professors and village
blacksmiths.
 57

- Network can create from separated people and organizations awareness that many
others have similar concerns and developmental problems.
- Network can provide the critical mass needed for local, national or international
advocacy, action and policy change.
- Networks can help address complex development problems and issues that seem
overwhelming to those working at village level.
- Networks can bring together funding and technical cooperation agencies and those in
need of resources and support.
- Network can provide members with a source of peer support, encouragement,
motivation and professional recognition. This can be particularly important to those
outside the normal hierarchies of government, education and international research.

General Problems Faced by Networks

Networks can face many organization problems. Some of these are major structural and
financial issuers, while others relate to more subtle networking matters, such as the effects of
the personalities involved. Some of these problems are discussed in the following sections (but
the order in which they are presented here does not necessarily reflect their relative
importance).

A valuable review of problems faced by network was prepared by Moelinono and Fisher
(1992); their findings were based on research in Southeast Asia but have a much wider
application to network in general.

Lack of clear objectives

Networks generally develop from clear needs identified by a group of individuals or

organizations and so they have a vision and specific objectives. However, Moelinono and
Fisher (1992) found that some networks had never clearly defined their goals. Without a clear
purpose and specific objectives, they found it difficult to develop dynamic programs with
distinct targets that could be met. The networks became vulnerable to manipulation in the
interests of dominant individuals or organizations. Network mentioning and evaluation became
almost impossible, member interest was difficult to maintain, and such networks had little
measurable impact.
 58

Membership disparity

Networks with a wide range of members may experience difficulties in obtaining a balance of
member involvement. Moelinono and Fisher (1992) described this problem as being one of
hierarchical differences. Large, recourse-rich agencies and institution with well-educated, self-
confident staff tend to dominate smaller organizations. The clear, coherent advocacy of the
internationally-oriented staff may appear convincing in network meetings and this may unduly
influence network programs, even though members who are closer to grass-roots reality believe
the approach or technology of the ‘international’ staff inappropriate. Language can be a barrier
to participation, with only those fluent in the official language (perhaps an external
international language such as English) being able to contribute effectively.

A range of ideas and ideologies can be healthy for a network and stimulate creative tension and
lively debate. However when strong minded (and /or loud-mouthed) people with conflicting
ideas meet, they can disrupt network meetings and progress with excessive ideological
methodological or technological debate. This can lead to alienation and withdrawals from the
network by those who feel unjustly treated, or are simply bored.

Domination

Networks can easily become dominated by particular organizations, interest groups, political
persuasions, ethic groups, academic disciplines or other divisive influences.

Networks are often initiated by a few individuals or a singles organization, who (whatever the
formal status of the network) want only like-minded, complaint members. Membership and
network activities tend to become limited to those favored by the dominant group, using rigid
criteria and narrow definitions. Jealousies and rivalries between individual, disciplines or
organizations can lead to the effective isolation of particular individuals or groups.

Once the domination process has started, it is difficult to stop it, as membership, organizational
responsibilities and the network agenda become controllers by one group. Individuals or
organizations that feel dominated or excluded have little scope to change the network, and their
attitude may become dismissive, disruptive or positively antagonistic. Unable to change
matters, they may even initiate or join an alternative (‘rival’) network.
 59

Electronic network can easily be dominated by few individuals. Some people dominate
discussion groups by reacting to all incoming messages, while others ‘chatter’ to each other in
a friendly yet exclusive way. An open, wide-ranging, international discussion group can
quickly become dominated by a few people with very specific interests and limited
geographical scope.

Centralization and bureaucracy

Centralization occurs when a network coordinator, secretariat, steering committee or board

starts to control and run the network for its own sake rather than coordinating and facilitating
the activities of its members. This is often associated with network domination involving the
secretariat, host organization or steering committee. Decision-making is centralized and
network communications are expected to pass through the central secretariat. Independently
organized network activities are considered as unofficial or are even discouraged.

Many networks that start informally tend towards centralization. On the other hand, networks
established by resource organizations and international institutes generally start centralized.
Some of these try hard to devolve their responsibilities and activate to create a genuine
participatory network. Others never break from the psychology of centralization, and the
network centers tend to preside over passive or puppet networks.

Centralization is often associated with bureaucracy, where the secretariat, coordinator or

steering committees become increasingly concerned with maintaining an office, handing
correspondence and circulating a newsletter. Networking activities between members decrease
and active membership falls. Outside observers may be unaware of the chronic problem, as the
network offices appear active and the mailing list seems healthy (and may even grow as result
of passive membership).

The dangers of centralization are often only apparent when the network coordinator, secretariat
and/or steering committee becomes inactive for a while (this might be due to work overlord,
sickness, resignation, lack of funds or attention to other duties ). The network as a whole may
simply cease to function. It may even die, because no one else feels they have the authority to
convene meeting or restart activities.
 60

Separate realties

In centralized network, the secretariat or network coordinator is often based in a resource rich
institution and/or in a major city. While modern technology and comforts can make
communication effective, they may also make the coordination unit increasingly remote from
the realities of network members. While the elite are accustomed to efficient
telecommunications and rapid inter-continental exchanges of e-mail, many people in the field
still rely on frustratingly slow postal services.

Similarly, people participating in network activities may also be living and working in separate
realities from those of the people they are supposed to represent. This is particularly true of
certain officials of governments, NGOs and aid agencies who appear to spend a high proportion
of their time attending workshops. Networks suffer because such people are not in close contact
with the real actors in development, whom they claim to represent.

Only people with easy access to computers and e-mail can join electronic discussion groups.
Although e-mail technology is spreading rapidly, its users are still mainly people in privileged
organization, and e-mail groups tend to be rather elitist. Nevertheless, e-mail can be quite a
leveling technology. Once connected, a young worker in a small rural NGO has the same access
to the electronic discussions as a university professor or the director of a large government
department.

Lack of resource

Network often suffer from lack of funds for their activities and coordination. While members
are generally prepared to sacrifice their time on behalf of the network, they seldom have
sufficient funds for significant cash outlay.

In national network, members may find it too expensive to travel to the capital city for a
meeting or to visit colleagues working in remote rural areas. In international networks, the cost
of airfares is almost invariably prohibitive for individuals. This means that unless the network
has a specific budget for assisting travel, only resource-rich individuals or organizations can
regularly participate in activities.
 61

In some cases, members find even the price of international postage or telecommunications a
significant personal burden. This fact is not always appreciated by their more fortunate
colleagues in resource-rich organizations.

If networks do not have an adequate budget, they have to apply to resource-rich agencies to
fund their activities. This has the possible advantage of the network having to justify its every
action, but the bureaucratic process takes up much time and energy that could be better spent
on actual networking.

Manipulation of resources

Where networks do have funds, for example as block grants, considerable tensions can be
generated through the way the funds are administered. However democratically and fairly the
money is dispersed, there may be jealousies and complaints. Both dedicated network members
and mere opportunists will request funds for field trips, international travel and program
funding. Requests coming from the center of the network (the coordinator, secretariat and
steering committee) will tend to have first priority in resource allocation. These will probably
be followed by nearby, influential colleagues and by those network members with whom good
communications are easy (generally members living in towns and/or working in well-equipped
institutions). The potential for genuine misunderstanding may be at least as great as that for
intentional manipulation.

Misinformation in networks

While networks can disseminate valuable information, some of the information being shared
may be of dubious reliability, and some may even be false. Unless there is an atmosphere of
questioning and self-criticism, inaccurate information can be spread among peer groups during
national or international workshops. It is difficult for network members and coordinators to
differentiate between accurate and inaccurate reports (whether verbal or written), particularly
if they come from well-meaning network members.

Professional journals use academic referees and peer review to maintain standards. Such time-
consuming processes are unlikely to be acceptable to people compiling simple newsletters.
Questioning the conclusions or validity of a report can be seen as offensive to some, and might
 62

easily be construed as unreasonable criticism, attempted censorship or a form of network

imperialism. The very openness of network experience exchange makes it easy for
‘misinformation’ to be spread. The only antidotes are likely to be friendly, constructive
criticism, a willingness to admit mistakes and close attention to actual experiences.

Competition

Networks can be affected by competition from other networks or organizations with

overlapping agendas. This can lead to creative collaboration, but it can also lead to competition
for recognition, limited resources and membership. Donor agencies can use the existence of an
alternative network as an excuse not to fund the activities of an apparently similar network.

In some countries there are quite small numbers of influential people that development
networks may wish to involve and influence (e.g. deans of technical universities, heads of
government departments). Network multiplication and fragmentation make it impossible for
such people to participate in all network meetings, and so the networks become susceptible to
the whims of favoritism.

Resource-rich organizations that are unhappy with a particular network (perhaps due to
professional differences, jealousies or the network’s resistance to domination) may be able to
use sponsorship to lure members to alternative events or workshops. Busy professionals have
only limited time available for networking, and competition is likely to damage
disproportionately those networks that are low-profile and resource-poor.

Donor interference

Donors or resource-rich institutions may use their financial muscle to influence network policy.
This may be expressed through biases in work programs, skewed participation in meetings and
a form of censorship of network publications.

Network members tend to be intimidated by donor and resource institution representatives.

Network core groups seldom argue with such people, being concerned not only for network
funding but also for any possibilities of external assistance to their own careers and programs.
Although the parent institutions do not officially condone interference in autonomous
 63

networks, some resource organization representatives are known to enjoy being in a position
of power, and exploit its potential for effective manipulation.

In extreme cases, a single donor can effectively close down a centralized network by cutting
off its funding. The influence of individual funders and resource organizations can be greatly
reduced through multi-donor sponsorship of networks and their activities.

Monitoring and evaluation

There seems to be relatively little experience relating to the monitoring and evaluation of
networks. This is partly because, by their very nature, networks tend to be informal and loose
structures that wish to emphasize future progress and not past experiences. Active, dynamic
networks are too busy networking and achieving to devote limited time and resources to
introspection; torpid or inefficient networks do not wish to risk being exposed to criticism.
Even informal self-evaluation procedures require searching self-examination and criticism.
This could be uncomfortable, even in highly successful networks, and it could be quite
traumatic in low-achieving organizations.

Some centrally-established networks have tried to undertake evaluation exercises: they include
the Arid Lands Information Network established by Oxfam and the networks of the Overseas
Development Institute. These evaluations have involved membership surveys, reviews of
existing information and evidence of changes, peer group reviews and records of publications
and citations. Some research networks funded by the International Development Research
Center (IDRC) have undertaken participatory internal evaluations (and monitoring) and
external analyses of constraints and programs.

Even highly centralized and structured networks have found it difficult to define reliable
indicators of network success and to quantify the effects and the benefits of networking.

Numbers can be given for certain outputs such as network members, newsletters (number of
issues, pages, recipients), letters answered, meetings arranged (participant numbers,
participants’ backgrounds, topics covered), network proceedings and publications, visits
arranged, etc. However, such quantitative figures give no indication of quality: 100 active
members may be better than 1,000 names on a mailing list; one in-depth workshop or network
 64

publication may be of more value to members than two superficial ones (or, conversely, two
simple workshops or publications may be more useful than one detailed one).

Numbers may give a general idea of a network’s activity level, but they not do give a fair
impression of its effectiveness.

To make evaluation even more difficult, there are the ‘iceberg’ and ‘snowball’ effects (which
have more relevance to tropical networks than their names suggest!). One small idea learned at
a network event can cause individuals and programs to change their whole work emphasis or
methodology, and improve their effectiveness immeasurably: Similarly, a brief workshop
encounter can lead to a whole series of ‘snowballing’ follow-up, secondary contacts and
collaboration, which, although the direct result of network actions, are not necessarily known
about by the network leaders.

Political Constraints

National and international networks have to operate within the political realities of a country
or region, and unstable or repressive regimes are not uncommon. In some countries,
information exchange is viewed with suspicion, and government clearance is required for all
correspondence, newsletter contributions, field trips and workshop attendance.

Intolerance of criticism is also common, making it difficult for networks to advocate alternative
policies towards development (for example relating to economic or mechanization policies,
grass-roots associations and credit).

General Guidelines for Networks

Although the catalogue of potential problems presented above may seem large, most networks
are able to overcome many or all of the constraints. Most networks are able to work effectively.

Nevertheless, some clear lessons emerge from the analysis of problems. These are presented in
the following pages in the form of generalizations and guidelines. They are intended to
stimulate further interest in the issues of effective network operation, not as a comprehensive
guide to network structure and function.
 65

Objectives

Networks need to establish clear objectives, which will determine their direction, their core
activities, and the types of individual and organization likely to be active members. The
objectives should be formulated with a wide cross section of members (to prevent domination).

Network objectives should be periodically reviewed, in order to assess progress made towards
meeting them and their continued relevance.

Networks should be prepared to evolve with time and to change their objectives as
circumstances change and their initial goals are met. Networks may be temporary arrangements
to tackle particular needs and when these are achieved the networks may have to transform
themselves radically to tackle new objectives, or even dissolve themselves.

Concrete activities

Networks need to initiate concrete activities that are interesting and beneficial to members. The
driving force of a network can be maintained through enthusiastic participation at specific
activities that allow member interaction and sharing.

Superficial activities lead to superficial networks. Active networks cannot be maintained only
by the circulation of newsletters. Lengthy mailing lists are no substitute for face-to-face
discussion and the experience of working closely with network colleagues to solve common
problem

Concrete activities do not have to be arranged by a central group. Network members can
arrange activities themselves. These may be open to the whole network or to specific groups
of collaborators (e.g. geographic or thematic sub-groups). In an active network, there will be a
wide range of activities taking place, some arranged by the core group but many more arranged
by a variety of network members.

Electronic networks also need concrete activities if they are to maintain people’s interest and
sense of belonging. These need not involve face-to face discussions, but they have to have clear
 66

purpose and outputs. E-mail discussion groups can arrange electronic conferences on specific
themes, resulting in guidelines or proceedings (which might be published in book form to
benefit non-members).

Committed core groups

Although wide participation is most important, networks need a committed core of active
members who will take initiatives and be responsible for coordination, management and
logistics. The individuals or organizations in this core group must be prepared to look beyond
the immediate bounds of their own organization and their day-to-day activities, and give
network affairs that most valuable of commodities: time.

Since almost all individuals and organizations involved in development feel pressured by
excessive demands on their time and resources, network business will only receive adequate
attention if it is considered a priority. The people (or organizations) volunteering for, or
assigned to, a network core group should consider the success of the network as an explicit
objective of their professional lives and work. The global impact of some social movements
(e.g. ecology, women’s rights and democratization) has been largely due to highly effective
networking organization run by small groups of committed volunteers.

The core group must be, and remain, representative of the networks’ members. It must interact
regularly with a variety of ordinary members to keep up with their ideas and changing needs.
Without such interaction, network core groups tend towards centralization and increasing
isolation.

There has to be a continual process of renewal within the leadership group, through rotation of
responsibilities within the network and by democratic election and selection.

The core group should regularly, and self-critically, review not only its progress but also its
own relevance to other network members. To help networks maintain a realistic approach,
clearly orientated towards their ultimate beneficiaries, creative ways of including beneficiaries
or their representatives in network management systems should be considered.

Avoiding Centralization through delegation

 67

The network, and its core group, should make a point of delegating network responsibilities to
a variety of individuals and organizations. This will help avoid the dangers of excessive
centralization, domination, isolation and passive membership. Some networks have avoided
centralization by delegating specific coordination responsibilities to different members of the
steering committee.

Network members should not expect all network activities to be arranged by the core group.
Members should feel themselves responsible or arranging or assisting in appropriate network
activities. If a network appears inactive, members should blame themselves as much as any
core group.

Electronic networks can delegate the task of stimulating discussion or moderating debate over
specific periods to different people. Members can be asked to raise issues for future debate,
and the task of preparing background information and/or introducing the topics can be
delegated to different individuals.

Decentralization of institution-based networks

Donor-established information-sharing networks and international research networks have

generally started with a central secretariat and full-time staff. These tend to be fairly formal
networks, with international donor involvement and a prestigious host institution. The
institutional base may enhance international recognition and facilitate funding, but it should
not stop the delegation and decentralization of network activities.

If institution-based networks are to avoid being mere information dissemination services and/or
outreach departments their central units should help to facilitate independently organized
activities by network members. This will not only enhance the members’ professional
experience, status and responsibilities but also improve prospects for network sustainability in
the event of the central unit closing down.

Several donor-created international networks have attempted to stimulate greater membership

participation by devolution. For example, some have developed decentralized units
concentrating on the needs of particular geographical areas or ecological zones.
 68

Sharing, belonging and openness

A sense of participation and inclusiveness is vital to network success. Decision-making

processes, the choice of network activities and their means of implementation should be
democratic, and allow members to feel they can influence events. Networks should welcome
participation form a broad range of individuals and agencies concerned with their objectives.
Networks can provide a relatively informal, non-threatening framework for exchange,
discussion, debate and cooperation between institutions and individuals. This encourages the
sharing and synergy that is fundamental to network success.

There are bound to be certain conflicts of interest between members. These may include
competition for limited network resources, workshop locations, training facilities and
representation on steering committees, or the advocacy of competing methodologies or
technologies. To ensure network harmony, and to prevent exclusion and fragmentation, these
issues must be seen to be tackled and resolved in an open and clearly fair way.

Resources

Networks do need resources to be effective. Funding is not everything. This is illustrated by

low impact of some resource-rich networks established by international institutions. By
contrast, some networks without any central funding have achieved a remarkable impact, due
to the willingness of their members to dedicate their time, effort and personal resources to
network activities. Nevertheless, money is required for international network participation and
the combination of member enthusiasm, involvement and adequate funding seems ideal.

A network needs to anticipate and plan for the funds it requires to implement activities, and it
needs a recognized structure to secure and manage such funding. A guiding principle should
be to keep overhead and operational costs to a minimum. Obtaining and managing funds
generally requires much time and energy from network members, who may not be experienced
in this. To maintain network credibility (to members and to sponsors) funding should somehow
be managed or supervised by a broad coalition of members.
 69

Members and agencies that contribute towards a network are likely to be committed to its
success. The more a network can be user-supported, the stronger it will be. User-supplied
resources do not have to be financial. One research-development network has made it a point
that although membership in developing counties is free, all members must regularly contribute
‘in kind’ through written articles and professional feedback.

Networks can benefit from being associated with a sympathetic local and/or international
agency that can provide access to resources, additional contacts and institutional support
services. However, safeguards may be required to prevent such institutional arrangements
leading to centralization and/or domination. A network that depends on a single institution or
funding agency is highly vulnerable to domination, and even to the sudden termination of its
resources at the whim of that agency.

Networks are likely to require external sponsorship for expenses relating to international
travels. This is particularly true for networks when they operate in countries with currencies
that are not readily exchangeable. Networks can minimize the need for expensive air flights by
emphasizing national level networking events and arranging international meetings at locations
that allow some, or all, participants to take cheaper, surface transport. To maximize the benefits
of international travel, those taking part in international networking activities should also be
actively involved in national networking events.

Self-funding possibilities and problem

Most networks are funded directly or indirectly by one or more aid agency or benefactor.
However, there are some that are financially independent. In the more developed countries,
some networks such as professional or disciplinary associations can generally fund many, or
even all, of their activities through a combination of subscriptions and voluntary work. Their
individual members are relatively affluent (compared with the less developed countries) and
so can afford subscriptions and a reasonable level of travel and communications expenditure
from their own pockets. Moreover, they often work in organizations such as universities that
are favorably disposed to the network or association, and accept a reasonable amount of
networking activity within official work time. Through their places of work, members and
network officials are often able to benefit (officially or unofficially) from efficient support
services, low-cost photocopying and easy telecommunications.
 70

Access by network members, in developing countries, to efficient communication facilities is

much more difficult. Finding photocopiers and working telephones can be a problem even in
government departments and universities. Staff of resource-rich development projects may
have access to good administrative support, but such projects are generally geared to the rapid
achievement of short-term goals and their staffs are seldom allowed to devote much
professional time to organizing network activities.

Some national-level professional associations in Asia have been able to fund their own
activities from a combination of subscriptions, voluntary work and supportive host institutions.
This is much more difficult for international networks. Due to low salary levels, foreign
exchange problems and high bank charges, the payment and collection of international network
subscriptions is seldom practical.

Legitimacy

A network and its leadership need the support and trust of their own members. They also benefit
from wider legitimacy within the social and political environment in which the network
operates. Legitimacy attracts participation and facilitates funding. It does not necessarily imply
conformity, but networks that are collaborative and inclusive are generally more effective than
those that are confrontational and exclusive.

Legitimacy can be enhanced by involving well-respected people at networking events and well-
targeted publicity. Legitimacy and recognition can be assisted by the repeated use of an easily
identifiable name (or acronym) and network logo.

The long-term reputation of a network may be affected by the quality of the information,
experiences or technologies being promoted or exchanged. Network core groups, workshop
facilitators and the editors of publications should endeavor to ensure that any information
disseminated is legitimate. This should not justify attempts at academic or intellectual
imperialism. Research and development networks are likely to benefit from core groups that
have technical expertise, a sympathetic but questioningly-critical approach and a close
understanding of grass-roots reality.
 71

Complementarity and linkages

There is scope for different networks tackling similar issues in different ways. Such networks
will have their own ‘niches’ which can be, and should be, complementary.

Geographical scope is one clear basis for complementarity: different networks can operate at
local, national, regional and global levels. Other complementary ‘horizontal’ networks may be
based on different organization type (NGOs, farmers, research institutions, etc.) or disciplines
(animal science, agricultural engineering, rural sociology, transport, etc.). Such networks can
have different (but overlapping) objectives, programs, membership and management systems,
reflecting their particular scope and target audience.

There is also an important need for ‘vertical’ networks that help to bring together the views and
experiences of beneficiaries, extension agents, researchers, policy makers, aid agencies,
financiers and the private sector.

Inter-network links are necessary to:

- enhance information exchange between different groups
- encourage constructive collaboration
- avoid competition
- reduce duplication of services
- improve the targeting of network benefits
- allow maximum benefits to be drawn from the different comparative advantages of
beneficiaries’ groups, national networks and international resource organization

Formal or informal linkages should be established and actively maintained through joint
activities and mutual representation at relevant workshops and coordination meetings. If
overlapping networks coexist without linkages, their members or core groups should ask
searching questions about the true nature of their networks and the implications of such lack of
cooperation for their members and target groups.

Monitoring and Evaluation

 72

Networks, like all organizations require regular and thorough monitoring and evaluation. Not
only should work plans be continually assessed relative to network objectives, but network
progress and achievements should also be periodically evaluated. For many reasons discussed
previously, the monitoring and evaluation of networks is extremely difficult. Despite, the very
process of attempting to assess the effectiveness of network activities is likely to be educational
for all involved.

Network management

Network management is complicated, and few people have had training in this field. The
success of many networks demonstrates that much can be achieved by groups of enthusiastic
amateurs without professional training in management. However, it should not be necessary
for all networks to have to learn entirely from their own experiences and mistakes. Regionally-
based training courses relating to networks could be beneficial.

Beneficiary involvement

Networks orientated towards improving sustainable development need to make an effort to

encourage beneficiary participation in networking processes. For example, agricultural
research and development networks would be more likely to achieve their aims if they
developed appropriate ways of ensuring that farmers’ views and experiences were considered
or represented in all the relevant aspects of their networking.

National and international networks are likely to gain from close association with area-specific
or national beneficiary-based networks. Exchanges between beneficiary groups in different
parts of a country, and between counties, could be particularly valuable. Network members can
help establish contacts between local groups and facilitate follow-up actions.

The most active people in many development networks are professional from NGOs,
international agencies, research institutions and the like. These are not, of course, the ultimate
beneficiaries, who are different groups of poor and marginalized people. The need to involve
the ultimate beneficiaries or end-users in networks is generally recognized, but this can be hard
to achieve in practice.
 73

The attempt is more likely to succeed if the beneficiaries are genuine participants in network
dialogue and information exchange. Moreover, a lot of grass-roots networking take place
horizontally and informally, not through formal channels or network structures. Formal
networks, and other institutions, are well advised to work with such mechanisms, and there is
much to be learned from them.

Network participation and benefits

Ultimately, participation in any network will be determined by the perceived benefits that
individuals and organizations see in it. Members need to have a stake in the general objective,
an interest in specific activities, a desire to contribute, a sense of belonging, respect for the
network, trust in its leaders and a confident feeling of achievement and future possibilities.

If network objectives are appropriate and inter-institutional linkages are in place and active,
decentralized programs of beneficiary-orientated network activities should make a significant
contribution to sustainable development.

Principles and characteristics of innovation systems

The main principles and characteristics of innovation systems approach are provided below:

1. The most striking characteristic of the innovation systems approach is its emphasis on
bringing multi-stakeholder partnerships together to address a need or opportunity.
Interaction between stakeholders is essential in order to learn from each other and negotiate
the terms of the partnership. Thus the concept embraces not only the science suppliers
(traditionally researchers in government stations and Universities) but the totality of actors
involved in production and marketing. Stakeholders that can form part of an innovation
partnership include: farmers (of different types); market traders; processors; exporters;
researchers; extension staff; input suppliers and others. The mix of stakeholders depends on
the problem or opportunity to be addressed, and the composition of the partnership changes
over time as the situation changes.
2. Forming, maintaining and managing partnerships require facilitation/coordination skills
and resources. Trust is an essential ingredient of success, and any partnership has the
potential for asymmetry (power, voice, benefit…) and conflict. Local institutions may need
 74

empowerment through building their capacity and the development of links to input
supplies, markets and technical assistance.
3. A major difference with conventional research is that the Innovation Systems approach
recognizes that innovation can arise anywhere. It is not the preserve of formal research
organizations. Farmers, CBOs, NGOs and private enterprises can be the source of the
innovation, and in many cases can develop the innovation independently of formal
government structures. In other cases, innovation is stimulated and coordinated by
government initiatives that bring the relevant stakeholders together and support them
through the innovation process. In other situations the innovation process can be coordinated
by an NGO or extension program that provides capacity building and empowerment for
farmer groups, and links them to local government, research and private agencies that can
support production and marketing.
4. Research is important, but not always central – and one needs to consider other bottlenecks
to the use of innovations. The livelihoods framework is useful in analyzing where these
constraints might be through consideration of the social, human, financial, natural and
physical assets available to communities, and the legal, institutional and political influences
on them.
5. The innovations systems approach is related to some previous approaches, such as the
commodity systems approach and the analysis of value chains, both of which, like the
agricultural innovation systems approach, consider the whole chain from producer through
to consumer.
6. The approach requires that organizations must act in new ways (flexibly, in partnership…)
and with new skills (facilitation, conflict management, participation…).
7. The public sector has a central role to play through developing legal and regulatory
frameworks and providing an enabling policy, trade, infrastructural and support
environment that encourages innovation.
8. The innovations systems approach is not inherently pro-poor. As with other approaches,
real impact on poverty and gender imbalances will only result if special attention is given
meeting those challenges.
9. A change in mindset of some researchers can be brought about through competitive grant
research funds that insist that the applicants work together with private and civil society
elements to test new technology in the real world of markets and inputs.

Innovation System Methodology

 75

Three key tasks will be undertaken to assess the utility of the innovation systems concept and
develop an operational framework:
1. Developing an analytical framework for the innovation systems concept.
2. Applying the analytical framework in eight case studies and conduct a comparative
analysis of the results.
3. Using the results of the analysis, developing an intervention framework for assessing
innovation systems (consisting of a typology of innovation and other diagnostic
features) and for identifying potential interventions (based on guiding principles and
examples).

The Analytical Framework

The starting point to undertake the analysis is developing a conceptual framework that could
guide the analysis of innovation systems. The conceptual framework places great emphasis on
understanding the nature of relationships between actors and the attitudes and practices that
shape those relationships. Relationships promote interaction, and interaction promotes learning
and innovation. Information on such qualitative processes usually is not available in databases
and was not available to the researchers who undertook the case studies. To assess these
features of the innovation system, researchers relied on a checklist of issues to be investigated
and a number of tools to explore partnerships, attitudes, and practices. The tools included:
1. an actor linkage matrix tool for mapping patterns of interaction;
2. a typology tool for differentiating among forms of relationships;
3. a typology of different forms the partnerships needed to sustain the learning; and
4. a typology of attitudes and practices that shape the key interaction patterns.

A description of the changing context is therefore a key diagnostic element for revealing any
divergence between organizations/other actors and their practices (on the one hand) and the
changing demands imposed by the context (on the other). The four main elements of the
analytical framework are (1) key actors and their roles, (2) the actors’ attitudes and practices,
(3) the effects and characteristics of patterns of interaction, and (4) the enabling environment
for innovation.

The Comparative Analysis

 76

A comparative analysis is conducted through selecting eight case studies. The analysis focuses
on how the innovation process differed across the cases. It identified specific factors that
triggered, enabled, or prevented innovation and analyzed how they were linked with the factors
described in the checklist. The comparative analysis also explored which types of interventions
successfully enabled innovation. Four criteria were used to select case studies that would
capture elements of the dynamic agricultural context:
1. niche sectors that have shown strong patterns of growth,
2. sectors that have been strongly integrated into global markets,
3. traditional sectors that are being transformed by the growth of activities further up the
food chain and that can highlight implications of the industrialization of the food chain,
and
4. sectors that provide large employment opportunities for the poor.

Information collection: researchers will be selected to conduct each case study. They receive
the conceptual framework document, the methodological guidelines, and a report structure.
They also receive training in the methodology and will be visited during the research to provide
assistance in using the methodology. The researchers assemble secondary data, reports, and
studies, and they also collect primary data through interviews of key informants from
companies, farmers, research organization staff, industry bodies, farmer associations, public
coordinating organizations (such as commodity boards), government ministries, and policy
analysis institutes. This information is used to develop a description and a diagnostic
assessment of the innovation system, which is presented in the case study report.

Case study description: is used explain the successes and the shortcomings of arrangements
used in promoting innovation in the agricultural sector and to identify intervention points for
governments and development assistance agencies. The basic hypothesis of the innovation
systems framework is that the capacity for continuous innovation is a function of linkages,
working practices, and policies that promote knowledge flows and learning among all actors
within a sector. It describes key elements that must be explored to assess capacity of
agricultural innovation systems. Interviews as well as secondary sources of information are
used to understand historical patterns of development and to provide the context for the
assessment.
 77

The checklist that was designed is used to address a central insight of the innovation systems
framework: partnerships and linkages must be analyzed in their historical and contemporary
context, which greatly defines the opportunities and necessities for innovation. Based on the
checklist following major issues are used to describe the case studies:

- The sector, with an emphasis on characteristic and purpose of establishment

- Actors, the roles they play, and the activities in which they are involved, with an
emphasis on diversity of public and private sector actors and on the appropriateness of
their roles.
- Attitudes and practices of the main actors, with an emphasis on collaboration, potential
inefficiencies, patterns of trust, and the existence of a culture of innovation.
- Patterns of interaction, with an emphasis on networks and partnerships, inclusion of
the poor, and the existence and functions of potential coordination and stakeholder
bodies.
- Enabling environment (policies and infrastructure), with an emphasis on the role of
policies related to science, technology, and fiscal concerns; the role of farmer and other
organizations in defining research and innovation challenges; and the significance of
legal frameworks.
- Ways forward, with an emphasis on the challenges for the sector to create innovation
capacity while integrating economic, poverty reduction, and environmental concerns;
improvements should be made.

A comparative analysis of case studies: the case studies highlight the diversity of actors
associated with the development of each sector and the innovations that have taken place. The
actors come from the entire spectrum of public and private actors in the economy. Because the
case studies provide a historical perspective on the development of the sectors, they also reveal
how different groups of actors can become important or take on new roles at different times.
In exploring these issues, it becomes apparent that roles cannot necessarily be discussed
independently of the attitudes and practices (the patterns of interaction) that inform or shape
them. The case studies also illustrate the diversity of change—unforeseen changes in the
production, policy, and marketing environment, as well as intentional innovations to grasp new
opportunities or cope with the changing context.
 78

The comparison of case studies follows the four main elements of the analytical framework
developed through presenting the strengths and weaknesses of each element in promoting
innovation as a basis for diagnostic and intervention frameworks.

The Intervention Framework

The framework helps to characterize the circumstances and stage of innovation in a particular
sector; provides guidance in diagnosing current and required capacity for innovation; and (3)
on the basis of the diagnosis, suggests principles and gives examples to guide the design of
interventions that could strengthen innovation capacity.

The intervention framework, derived from the case study analysis, departs from many earlier
uses of the innovation system concept by providing additional guidance on diagnosis (the most
common use of the concept) and by adding specific ideas for interventions to develop the
capacity of innovation systems. The intervention framework consists of four elements, two
pertaining to assessment and two pertaining to intervention.

Assessment elements include:

1. A typology of agricultural innovation environments. The situations where innovation
capacity is being assessed and where interventions to strengthen this capacity are to be
applied. A typology of situations that are likely to be encountered in different sectors
and in different countries can help the user rapidly assess the characteristics of
innovation capacity in a particular context. The typology is based on the origins of
sector development (was development arranged by the government or driven by the
appearance of new opportunities?) and the phases of development of the sector.
2. Diagnostic features. Distinctive features of innovation capacity are identified for each
phase of sector development (pre-planned, foundation, expansion, nascent, emergence,
stagnation, and innovation phases). These diagnostic features are derived from the
analysis of four key elements of the innovation systems concept used in the analytical
framework of this study: the actors, attitudes and practices, interaction patterns, and the
enabling environment. The discussion of the diagnostic features explains why certain
features are likely to impede innovation and identifies promising arrangements that
could be built upon.
 79

Phases of development:

- The pre-planned phase describes a situation in which no research or other policy

intervention has been made, as new opportunities have not yet been identified.
- The foundation phase, priority sectors and commodities have been identified, and
the government supports them through research and policy interventions.
- The expansion phase. The government now intervenes with projects and special
programs to link actors in the innovation system. This phase is a time to test a
variety of mechanisms for building more productive patterns of interaction in a
sector and to identify additional problems arising from interaction with existing
attitudes and practices.
- The nascent phase in opportunity-driven innovation systems resembles the pre-
planned phase of arranged systems in a number of ways. The main difference is that
individual or organizations have identified new opportunities, but a recognizable
option (sector) has yet to emerge.
- In the emergence phase, the sector takes off. Rapid growth rates are observed. The
sector starts to be recognized by the government. Growth is driven by the activity
of the private sector (mainly) or NGOs (sometimes). The existing knowledge and
resources of companies and farmers are sufficient for them to participate in these
new markets.
- In the stagnation phase, the sector starts to face increasing and incremental
evolutionary pressures to innovate because of competition, particularly from other
countries, and because of changing consumer demands and trade rules.
Government, private sectors and farmers lack the knowledge to cope with these new
challenges and lack the patterns of interaction to access this knowledge from others.
- The dynamic system of innovation, established with the right type of support. Now
the sector is neither publicly nor privately led but is characterized by a high degree
of public and private interaction and collaboration in planning and implementation.
These relationships help create an agile sector that responds quickly to emerging
challenges and opportunities and delivers economic growth in socially inclusive and
environmentally sustainable ways.

Intervention elements include:

 80

3. Principles for intervention. The diagnostic features are associated with a set of
distinctive intervention principles to address the characteristic weaknesses of
innovation capacity in each phase of sector development. Principles rather than
prescriptions are emphasized, because the specific features of interventions must match
local institutional and policy settings.
4. Options for intervention, based on the case studies that will be analyzed and described.

Principles of Intervention: The innovation systems concept places great emphasis on the
context-specific nature of arrangements and processes that constitute a capacity for innovation.
For that reason, principles of intervention rather than prescriptions are emphasized here.
Depending on the context and the development phase of the innovation system, different types
of interventions may be considered. Interventions in advanced phases of development typically
can build on interventions from earlier phases; the more advanced the phase, the more varied
the interventions that can take place simultaneously. Interventions that build on success or
nurture success help to move from the expansion or emergence phase to a dynamic system of
innovation.

- Initiating interventions (for example, building trust or improving the ability to scan and
reduce risk for new opportunities) allow the transition from the pre-planned phase to
the foundation phase.
- Experimental interventions (for example, supporting partnerships on emerging
opportunities, or developing attitudes, practices, and financial incentives) allow the
transition from the foundation phase to the expansion phase.
- Interventions that help build on or nurture success (for example, expanding proven
initiatives, strengthening good practices, and addressing weaknesses) allow the
transition from the expansion or emergence phase to a dynamic system of innovation.
- Remedial interventions (for example, building coherence and links between the
research system and the sector, supporting coordination bodies, and strengthening or
redesigning existing organizations) help resolve the weaknesses of innovation capacity
in the stagnation phase.
- Maintenance interventions (for example, maintaining agility and the ability to identify
new opportunities and challenges, enhancing collaboration across actors and sectors,
 81

and contributing to the maintenance of an enabling environment) are aimed at ensuring

that dynamic systems of innovation do not deteriorate.

While diagnosis of the innovation system indicates which interventions may yield the greatest
benefits, it is also useful to consider cost criteria, given the budget constraints in day-to-day
public sector management. Many of the proposed interventions will not be costly or can be put
in place by channeling existing funding (for example, research funds) in a different way.
Nevertheless, cost considerations would suggest investing first in the interventions that bring
about more sector coordination and governance, because they are relatively cheap and make it
possible to create a financial as well as a political base for further investments. It may also be
wise to agree from the beginning on cost-sharing mechanisms and how they will be phased in.

Intervention Options: interventions are needed to improve the awareness and ability of the
existing actors to scan for new opportunities. Interventions should be designed to build trust
between the different players. With a potentially large number of different opportunities to
choose from, many of which will turn out to be inappropriate, another useful intervention
principle is to establish measures to reduce the risk of pursuing new opportunities.

Options for intervention include the following based on the principles of intervention:
- Establish a joint foresight group of industry, government, civil society, and research
community representatives to review long-term threats and opportunities for agriculture
and to suggest how they can be addressed.
- Establish management mechanisms for research and training that allow agri-actors to
participate in strategy development, priority setting, and funding.
- Create farmer associations so farmers can become more effective business partners and
acquire knowledge and technology.
- Create or strengthen a sector-coordinating body with members from the public sector,
private sector, and NGOs and representatives from major markets.

Utility of the Innovation System Concept

The assessment of the innovation systems concept and the intervention framework yields the
following observations:
 82

1. Through its explicit attention to development outcomes, the innovation systems concept
offers a new framework for analyzing both the roles of science and technology and their
interaction with other actors to generate goods and services.
2. The innovation systems concept can be very effective in identifying the missing links
in traditional sectors and potentially improving the innovation dynamics. This
dynamism often depends on the presence of some sector-wide coordinating capacity
for identifying innovation challenges and pursuing novel approaches to innovation.
3. The application of the innovation systems concept in agricultural development requires
additional empirical validation. In this respect, the analysis described here has
contributed to a learning process, similar to the process proposed for building
innovation capacity in a sector.
4. Universally applicable blueprints for innovation system development do not exist.
Development practitioners must be willing to work with emerging concepts and must
recognize that the interventions they are planning will evolve while they learn.
5. The innovation systems concept promotes the integration of poverty and environment
issues into sector development planning by altering the roles and interactions of actors
in the public sector, the business community, and civil society.
6. The concept provides a framework for inclusive, knowledge-intensive agricultural
development, but more experience is required before the contours of innovation system
can be fully defined.
 83

6. EXTENSION AND NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

In terms of extension approaches, natural resources development projects have highlighted the
importance of group and community involvement in extension, in contrast to the individual
farm orientation of most agricultural extension work. In practice, however, successful group
approaches are rare, even (or especially) when dealing with common property resources. The
extension workers need to be able to work closely with groups and communities to facilitate
community analysis of the local environment, to support the development or strengthening of
groups which can take and implement decisions about the use of common property resources,
and to act as intermediaries between community and government institutions. Training in
communication skills (particularly with groups) in participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and in
problem-solving becomes increasingly important.

The technologies people use play a fundamental role in shaping the efficiency, equity, and
environmental sustainability of natural resource management. This has been the reason for
substantial investments in research to improve agricultural technologies, from new crop
varieties to natural resource management practices. However, improved agricultural and
natural resource technologies are of little value unless they are judged to be appropriate by
farmers and subsequently adopted. There are many factors constraining farmers’ technology
choices, but the lack of secure property rights has been commonly identified as an important
barrier to adoption, particularly for longer-term investments in things like tree crops and
improvements to natural resources. For technologies and natural resource management
practices that require that farmers make joint decisions and cooperate in their implementation,
inadequate and ineffective institutions for managing collective activity can be a constraint to
adoption. Property rights and collective action (PRCA) are also important in determining who
benefits from productivity increases (equity) by determining who can reap the benefits of
improvements.

Many natural resource management practices cannot be effective if adopted by a single farmer
but require coordination across farms or even communities. Farmers’ decisions about use of
new technologies used in natural resource management interact with factors to either constrain
or enable adoption.
 84

6.1. Factors Influencing Technology Choices

Here is a brief overview of what those factors are and the rationale underscoring their effect on
the adoption of different technologies, particularly new technologies introduced to increase
production or improve the condition of the natural resources.

Infrastructure and Information

Access is a critical dimension of technology choices. Unless the appropriate physical,
economic, and information infrastructure is in place, farmers may be unable to acquire
technological inputs or market their output. Whereas roads, electricity, water supplies,
availability of improved seeds and other key inputs, and access to market outlets may be
obvious considerations for whether a technology is adopted or not, less obvious may be barriers
to the diffusion of information. Farmers must know about the availability of new technologies,
and this knowledge must extend to knowledge about the returns from adoption, which in a risky
world requires judgments about alternative possible outcomes of yields and profits. Full
information about profitability and risk is rarely available for new technologies, simply because
they are new. Consequently, farmers’ perceptions of risk may dominate the adoption decision
in the early years, particularly if the early years prove to be unfavorable.

If farmers form their risk perceptions in a rational way, then with the passage of enough time,
their perceptions will tend to move from subjective to objective risk assessments based on
knowledge of the interactions between technologies and their environment. But in the early
years, farmers may have exaggerated perceptions of the risks involved with new technology,
making them prefer those with which they have more experience. Effective extension services
can accelerate the spread of knowledge about the profitability and risks associated with new
technologies. Farmers are also quite efficient in learning from each other, and at experimenting
on their own farms.

Environmental and Price Risk

Farmers are generally averse to risk, although there is considerable variation in their individual
behavioral patterns. If a new technology is clearly superior to an established technology in the
sense that the return will be greater no matter what happens to weather, prices, etc., then risk
aversion is not likely to deter farmers from using it. But if the new technology is not superior
 85

under all possible eventualities, then differences in risk attitudes can play a role, even when
perceptions about the riskiness of the new technology are correct.

If farmers are risk averse, then they should be more reluctant to adopt risky new technologies
even when these are more profitable on average, but more receptive to risk reducing
technologies such as irrigation or more stable crop varieties. Much seems to depend on
household livelihood strategies, which are conditioned by wealth and whether farmers have
efficient options for reducing their exposure to risk, and/or to coping with losses when they
arise. Risk reducing options may include income and crop diversification, inter-cropping, and
plot scattering; risk coping strategies may include use of savings or credit, storage, family
support networks, and asset markets. Where these options are available, the amount of
additional risk associated with alternative crop technologies or production techniques may be
too small for risk to play an important role in these decisions. Risk is doubtless more important
though when efficient risk management options are limited, as may be the case with many
small scale farmers, or when farmers have to choose among “lumpy” technologies, such as the
purchase of machines or livestock, or sizeable investments in resource improvements such as
irrigation, terraces, or drainage.

Wealth and Credit

Wealth expands a household’s options to acquire and use technologies, especially those that
require the outlay of considerable resources. Lack of wealth need not be a constraint to
technology adoption for other low asset households, provided financial markets are available
to provide necessary financing arrangements. However, a sizeable body of literature points to
the lack of access to credit and savings services for farmers in many rural areas, limiting their
ability to purchase needed technological inputs.

Whereas transaction costs of lending play a role in making small loans in more remote areas
unviable, the credit that is available is often biased against small farmers and women because
of their lack of collateral and perceived higher default risk. In response to this, many countries
implemented subsidized agricultural credit programs, often tied to purchases of new
technology. While these approaches were helpful to the uptake of Green Revolution
technologies, most of these programs proved financially unsustainable, and often failed to
reach small farmers and women. The contraction of subsidized and publicly funded credit
 86

schemes in recent years has led to new approaches to rural finance, including development and
strengthening of local institutions for micro credit and mobilization of rural savings.

Labor
Labor bottlenecks can also be a significant constraint to the use of some kinds of technologies
High yielding crop varieties not only add to total labor requirements, but they often exacerbate
seasonal peaks in labor requirements. Peaks typically occur at planting, weeding and harvest
times. If the new varieties have a shorter growing season, and permit additional multiple
cropping, there may be consequent overlapping of the harvesting and planting of successive
crops with very sharp increases in seasonal labor requirements. Unless local labor markets are
elastic, increases in demand for labor raises seasonal wage rates which can quickly dampen the
profitability of new technologies, particularly for farms which cannot get by with family labor
alone. Even when wage rates do not rise, supervision costs make hired labor relatively more
expensive than family labor because work effort, and therefore labor productivity, tends to be
lower for the former. Changing to new techniques may then depend on complimentary and
expensive investment in farm mechanization, which can be a particular hurdle for small farms
because of the lumpiness of the required investment and the need for a minimum farm size to
spread the cost. Efficient machinery rental markets can help neutralize these constraints, but
transaction costs and excess demand in peak periods can still work against small farms. Even
when family labor is not constraining for small farms, women’s available labor supply may be
quite limited due to many competing demands for their labor, thereby leaving them little time
to manage new technologies.

Investments in improving natural resources (for example, construction of terraces, irrigation,

water catchment areas, drainage, and regular composting) can be particularly labor demanding,
and may be too expensive to undertake in communities with limited access to labor. However,
if many of these investments are carried out in the off-season where they do not compete
directly with labor for agriculture, opportunities costs for labor may be lower. The literature on
induced innovation hypotheses argues that many of these labor intensive investments will only
be undertaken when population density reaches critical levels and land becomes scarce relative
to labor. Commercialization of agriculture can have a similar affect, raising the value of land
and hence also increasing the returns to investments that improve its productivity.

Price Policy
 87

The profitability of new technologies is affected by input and output prices, both of which are
often influenced by government policies in developing countries. As such, policies that
discriminate against agriculture have worked against the uptake of capital or cash-intensive
technologies, although more recent devaluation and market liberalization policies have in many
cases improved relative prices for traded agricultural goods and, therefore, induced adoption
of technologies associated with them. However, these changes have also been associated with
increased price volatility for agricultural produce and the removal of many input subsidies,
such as credit, fertilizers, and irrigation water, so the net effect on farm level profitability can
be quite mixed.

Another price related issue is that as more and more farmers adopt a yield improving
technology, the increase in aggregate output can act to depress the market price. This effect
will be greater the more inelastic the demand curve of the international market. If the new
technology is clearly superior and acts to reduce average costs per unit of output by a greater
margin than it reduces prices, then it may still be attractive.

Other Conditioning Factors

Technologies may be unsuitable beyond the bounds of certain physical, socioeconomic,
cultural and political environments. However, evaluating the appropriateness of a technology
or package of technologies goes well beyond its technical characteristics. Even when these
attributes appear promising, the ‘social bias’ of a technology arising from institutions and
power structures can preclude adoption or the positive outcomes expected from its adoption.
In some regions of Africa and Asia, cultural restrictions prevent women from planting trees
such that they are unable to participate in many agroforestry technologies. Similarly, legal
restrictions may impede use of certain technologies. Given that many such restrictions are
linked to property rights.
Property Rights
Property rights can be defined as “the capacity to call upon the collective to stand behind one’s
claim to a benefit stream (Bromley, 1991).” As such, they are recognized as an important factor
shaping the use of different technologies. If people do not have the confidence that they will
benefit from investments in technologies, they are less likely to adopt the technologies.

Most of the literature linking property rights with technology adoption has focused on the role
of tenure security in shaping farmers’ decisions to invest in agriculture, with empirical studies
 88

demonstrating conclusions concerning its importance. Where tenure security is defined in

terms of bundles of transfer rights or possession of title, the correlation between security and
investment tends to be higher.

Concepts of tenure security have largely been confined to individually or household controlled
property rather than common property, which is controlled by one or more groups of
individuals or communities. To define tenure security for the users of a common property
resource, three dimensions need to be considered. First, does the group or community have
secure ownership rights over the collectively managed resource (in the same sense as defined
above for individually controlled resources)? Second, is there security of membership in the
group to ensure that an individual will have continued use rights to the resource over time?
Third, is there an effective local institution to manage and regulate the use of the resource, to
assure members that if they abide by the rules, others will also? Many common properties are
under increasing pressure today and are degenerating to open access areas. One major reason
is population expansion exerting increased competition for resources and producing a growing
number of people with group membership claims. Breakdowns in common property
management also occur when the ownership rights of the community are challenged by
outsiders, including in some cases the state (for example, nationalization of rangelands and
forests), and in response to market forces, policy interventions, and other institutional and
technological forces which undermine the institutions which have managed the resource.

Collective Action
As we move from agricultural technologies that can be employed on individual farms to natural
resource management techniques that operate at the landscape level, collective action becomes
particularly relevant. The Oxford Dictionary of Sociology (Marshall, 1998) defines collective
action as: “action taken by a group (either directly or on its behalf through an organization) in
pursuit of members’ perceived shared interests.” Collective action is most visible in
community-level efforts to build and maintain local infrastructure for natural resource
management. This is seen clearly in farmer-managed irrigation systems.

In addition to joint investment in purchase, construction, or maintenance of technologies, such

actions as decision-making and implementation of rules to exploit (or refrain from exploiting)
a resource; representing the group to outsiders; and mechanisms for sharing information and
 89

other resources are especially relevant for agriculture and natural resource management
techniques.

6.2. Conflict over Natural Resources

People have different uses for natural resources as forests, water, pastures and land, and want
to manage them in different ways. Knowing about these different needs and interests can help
to inform successful management so that everyone benefits as much as possible. However, such
differences can also lead to conflict when:
- there is competition over material goods, economic benefits, property or power;
- parties believe that their needs cannot be met;
- parties perceive that their values, needs or interests are under threat.

Sometimes it is best to monitor a conflict without intervening. Such conflicts are problematic,
but are unlikely to become disputes and are not dangerous. At other times, however, if a conflict
is ignored, or attempts to manage it fail, it can grow into a dispute or some other form of
confrontation. A dispute occurs when a conflict over a specific issue or event becomes public.
A dispute can be a fight, an appeal to authorities, or a court case. The difference between
disputes and conflict is important. All disputes reflect conflict, but not all conflicts develop into
disputes. Some conflicts may develop into disputes quickly. Others remain latent for a long
time until triggered or aggravated by something new, such as a development project or the
arrival of outside interests.

Community-based natural resource conflicts may occur at the local level, but often involve
regional, national or even global actors. They range from conflicts among local men and
women over the use of land, to conflicts among communities disputing control over woodland,
or fishers disagreeing about the devices used for fishing.

A dispute may also break out at different levels. At one level, the main issue could be access
to or control over the resources that people depend on. At another, the dispute could relate to
more deeply rooted issues such as recognition, rights, identity, or the ability to participate. The
intensity of conflict also varies greatly – from confusion and frustration among members of a
community about poorly communicated development policies, to violent clashes among groups
over resource ownership, rights and responsibilities.
 90

As this discussion shows, community-based natural resource conflicts are often very complex.
There are usually many causes and many interconnected issues, making it hard to identify the
key issues in the conflict.

It is sometimes helpful to think of conflict as having the following three elements:

- People: how people think about and relate to the conflict; their feelings, emotions and
perceptions of the problems and of the other people involved; and how these relate to
each other and to natural resources in securing livelihoods.
- Process: the way decisions are made, and how people feel about this. The decision-
making process is often overlooked as a key cause of conflict. However, resentment,
feelings of being treated unfairly and a sense of powerlessness are often rooted in this
area.
- Problems: the specific issues and differences among the people, groups and agencies
involved.

These often include different values, incompatible interests and needs, or concrete differences
regarding the use, distribution or accessibility of scarce resources. They are often referred to as
the “root causes” of conflict, about which people tend to take clear and strong positions.

Natural resources are increasingly subject to intense competition. In most cases, several factors
are responsible for this, including:
- demographic change (e.g. population growth, migration and urbanization);
- market pressures (e.g. increased commercialization, intensification and privatization of
local economies);
- environmental changes that force people to alter their livelihood strategies (e.g. floods,
recurrent droughts, altered river flows).

These forces can push people to exceed the sustainable harvesting limits of renewable natural
resources (forests, water bodies, grazing areas, marine resources, and agricultural land). In
areas where the number of people is increasing, resources often need to be shared among more
users with different interests. These users are farmers seeking access to agricultural land,
pastoralists requiring pasture resources for livestock, and city dwellers requiring more meat,
fish and cereals.
 91

Securing access to resources can become people’s greatest concern when those resources are
scarce. Water scarcity in arid or semi-arid regions is a key example. As freshwater is necessary
for life, but cannot be made or grown, access to water may serve as a focus of dispute.

However, increased competition is not always the only cause of conflict. Four important
conditions influence how access to resources could become contested. These are:
- the scarcity of a natural resource;
- the extent to which the supply is shared by two or more groups;
- the relative power of those groups;
- the degree of dependence on this particular resource, or the ease of access to alternative
sources.

Different Options for Managing Conflict

Local communities, resource users, project managers and public officials can choose from a
number of procedural options for managing conflicts. They must carefully consider the pros
and cons of each possible option to decide which approach is to their best advantage. No
approach for managing natural resource conflicts works in all situations. Each has its own
strengths and limitations. Deciding on the most appropriate and legitimate means of addressing
the conflict will depend on the situation.

The various conflict management options vary in terms of:

- the legal recognition of process and outcome;
- the privacy of the approach;
- the specialization required of the third party that might be assisting in conflict
management;
- the role and authority of any third party that might be involved;
- the type of decision that will result;
- the amount of coercion that is exercised by or on the disputing parties.

When facing disagreement with others, people may initially avoid each other. This might be
because they dislike the discomfort that accompanies conflict, do not consider the issue to be
very important, or do not believe that the situation can be improved. Avoidance may have a
 92

strategic element – people may wait until the right moment to act in a more direct or forceful
manner. When avoidance is no longer possible, or the conflict increases in intensity, the parties
may resort to other problem solving approaches. The most common way to reach a mutually
acceptable agreement is through informal decision-making, which can involve negotiation
and/or mediation:
- Negotiation is a bargaining relationship among the opposing parties. Negotiations are
voluntary and require that all parties are willing to consider the others’ interests and
needs. If negotiations are hard to start or have reached an impasse, the conflict parties
may need assistance from a third party.
- Mediation is the process whereby an acceptable third party who has limited or no
authoritative decision-making power assists the principle parties in a conflict to resolve
their dispute through promoting conciliation and facilitating negotiations. As with
negotiation, mediation leaves the decision-making power primarily in the hands of the
conflict parties. They enter into a voluntary agreement, which they themselves, and not
the mediator, implement.
Some advocate a much stronger position for the third party. In these cases, conflict parties have
less direct control over the process and outcome of conflict management.

Arbitration is a process whereby the parties submit the issues at stake to a mutually agreeable
third party, who will make the decision for them. Arbitration is an informal, private procedure,
unlike adjudication, in which the resolution process is shifted to the public domain. In
adjudication, the disputants usually hire lawyers to act as their advocates, and cases are argued
in front of judges or other officials from provincial authorities or technical ministries with
adjudicative authority in land disputes. These representatives of public law take into
consideration the disputants’ concerns, interests and arguments, and make a decision based on
the norms and values of a society and in conformity with legal statutes. The disadvantage of
this is that the decision is premised on one party being right and one wrong. The outcome
therefore tends to produce a winner and a loser. The advantage is that the results of the process
are binding and enforceable because the judge is socially sanctioned to make the decision.

Conflict management moves outside the law (becomes extralegal) when it does not rely on
socially required or acceptable processes. Extralegal approaches involve processes of coercion
to persuade or force “opponents” into compliance or submission.
 93

The above figure shows a continuum of conflict management approaches. These range from
conflict avoidance at one extreme to physical violence at the other. In between these two
extremes, there are many different approaches and options for managing conflict. Moving from
left to right in the diagram, the approaches become progressively more directive and coercive
in terms of decision-making. The further towards the right of the diagram, the less the influence
that the conflict parties have on the process and outcome of conflict management.

In addition to the conflict management approach, the social system within which a conflict
management process takes place must also be clearly understood. There are three main social
systems of conflict management that involve a third party:

- Customary systems for managing conflict: - customary strategies and techniques for
managing and resolving conflicts regarding natural resources have evolved within and
across communities. There are many cross-cultural similarities – negotiation, mediation
and arbitration are common practices, as are more coercive measures such as peer
pressure, gossip, ostracism, supernatural sanctions and violence. The success of
customary natural resource management strategies in managing conflict often depends
on the enforcement capacities of traditional authorities.

- National legal systems: - National legal systems governing natural resource

management are based on legislation and policy statements that are administered
through regulatory and judicial institutions. Adjudication and arbitration are the main
 94

strategies for addressing conflicts, with decision-making vested in judges and officials
who possess the authority to impose a settlement on disputants. Decisions are more
likely to be based on national legal norms applied in a standardized or rigid manner,
with all-or-nothing outcomes.
- Collaborative methods of ACM: - In addition to customary and legal systems, there are
also alternative conflict management (ACM) methods. Collaborative conflict
management promotes joint decision-making and seeks voluntary agreement among
disputants in win–win solutions. Because collaborative conflict management is based
on voluntary agreements, enforcement depends solely on all parties’ willingness to
comply with an agreement. Third parties may facilitate this process, but cannot force
anything on the disputants. Collaborative conflict management works best with conflict
stakeholders who are fairly equal in strength.

The Ten Steps of Conflict Management

ACM seeks to build people’s capacity to talk with each other, to find a way forward in
negotiations and to reach agreement. ACM is a complex, iterative process that may suffer
drawbacks or experience sudden moves forward.

The process can be subdivided into four major “milestones” and ten steps, each with its own
specific activities. These steps form what is called the “process map”. The process map helps
mediators in ACM to keep on track and to move the process forward towards successful
outcomes.

Milestone A: Entry
Before mediators become actively involved with the different conflict parties (stakeholders) in
ACM, they need to clarify their role as a third party. This includes a preliminary conflict
analysis with detailed clarification of what the conflict is about, and consultation with
stakeholders. Steps 1 to 3 are necessary to complete milestone A.

Step 1: Preparing entry. The mediators clarify their role and prepare the contacts with conflict
parties. They examine background information on the conflict, and develop the best strategy
for approaching the different parties to the conflict.
 95

Step 2: Entering the conflict scene. This is the first direct contact that the mediators have with
the conflict parties. The mediators first meet the conflict parties separately and learn how they
frame the conflict. They then clarify their own role in moving the process forward, and secure
a commitment to start mediation.

Step 3: Analyzing the conflict. The mediators clarify their assumptions about the conflict, and
analyze the different stakeholders’ positions. The mediators should continue only if: a) the
conflict analysis indicates that existing conflict management mechanisms are unlikely to
succeed; b) interest-based negotiations appear to be the best strategy under the given
circumstances; and c) their own intervention will do no harm.

Milestone A is achieved when a team of mediators decides consciously (via a deliberate

decision within the team) and transparently (via communication to the conflict parties) that
interest-based negotiations have a chance of working in this specific case of conflict.

Milestone B: Broadening stakeholder engagement

When the parties to the conflict have defined their roles and agreed to commission a third party,
it is the mediation team’s task to guide the different stakeholders’ self-reflection and self-
discovery. This includes making them aware of their long-term interests, the gains they could
obtain from a negotiated solution, and the possible alternatives to a negotiated solution. At the
end of this process, stakeholders should willingly agree to meet the other conflict parties for
negotiations. Steps 4 and 5 are necessary to complete milestone B.

Step 4: Broadening stakeholder engagement. In this process, the mediators gradually hand over
control and responsibility to the conflict stakeholders. Mediators help the stakeholders to
analyze the root causes of the conflict, the different stakeholders involved, and their own
positions, strengths, interests and needs.

Step 5: Assessing options. The mediators now help the different stakeholders to generate
options for resolving or managing the conflict. The merits of each option are assessed, and the
options are prioritized.
 96

Milestone B is achieved when each of the different conflict parties (stakeholders) has clarified
its own interests, considered strategies about the options for managing or resolving the conflict,
and expressed willingness to negotiate with the other parties to achieve an agreement.

Milestone C: Negotiation
At this stage, the mediators bring the conflict stakeholders to the table to negotiate options and
possible modes of agreement, as well as the practical measures that could be adopted to
implement agreement. Agreements are negotiated on the assumption that they benefit all parties
and focus on the interests and underlying needs of the stakeholders. Steps 6 to 8 are necessary
to accomplish milestone C.

Step 6: Preparing negotiations. Negotiations need careful preparation. This includes preparing
the people involved, exploring strategies and planning the negotiation setting.

Step 7: Facilitating negotiations. This is the most challenging part of the conflict management
process, as the parties seek to persuade each other to reach agreement. At this step, differences
are narrowed, often through the shifting of viewpoints from positions to interests and needs.
While there is a broad sequence that the negotiation process should follow, it is quite normal
that there are setbacks and deviations during this process. The negotiations are complete when
the conflict parties can agree on options for settling the conflict. These options are brought
together, in preparation for moving towards a single agreement that is acceptable to everyone.

Step 8: Designing agreement. Once the conflict parties have agreed on which options to
consider, they need to reach agreement on how these options will be implemented and how
implementation will be monitored. The mediators’ role in this process also has to be clarified.

Milestone C has been successfully completed when the negotiation parties have listened to and
considered each other’s concerns and interests, jointly developed a specific agreement to
manage the conflict, and jointly agreed how this shall be implemented and monitored.

Milestone D: Exit
After an agreement has been signed, conflicts may be settled, but not yet resolved. There may
be drawbacks when conflict parties do not comply with the agreement, or relations are not
restored adequately for collaboration. While a mediation team cannot solve all the problems in
 97

a community at one time, it needs to ensure that the different conflict stakeholders are at least
willing to comply with the agreement and to act in a collaborative manner with each other.
Steps 9 and 10 are necessary for milestone D:

Step 9: Monitoring the agreement. The mediators may take various roles in the implementation
and monitoring process of agreements. These roles need to be clarified with the conflict
stakeholders.
Step 10: Preparing exit. The mediation team needs to develop a system for handing over
responsibility to implement and monitor the agreement to the stakeholders or a trusted local
mediator.

The team may also develop strategies that build further the communities’ capacity to solve
future problems. These steps are not part of the core of ACM, but are becoming increasingly
important complementary elements in broader collaborative natural resource management
approaches.

Milestone D has been achieved when the mediator (or mediation team) can leave the area. This
is the case when the parties to the conflict have restored their relationships and are enabled and
willing to continue implementing the agreement. They may also have improved capacity to
solve future conflicts by themselves.
 98

7. POLICY AND POLICY MAKING IN AGRICULTURE AND RURAL

DEVELOPMENT

Policy is statement of government priorities as interpreted in action and reflected in laws,

operational directives and regulations. The term “policy” in its broadest sense can refer to
programs, strategies, plans and their implementation resulting from public (State) or collective
decision-making. International treaties, conventions and agreements, national and state
legislation and local authority regulations are the legal expression of policy.

Thus Policy can be generated at the international, national, provincial, district, and local levels.
The decisions on legislation, regulation, resource allocation and spending that most affect
development interventions are usually made at the national and provincial levels (depending
on the degree of decentralization). However, it is important to recognize how policy generated
at all locations affects community livelihoods.

A sound, equitable and consistent policy and legal environment is fundamental to strengthening
communities as farm managers and maintaining collaborative partnerships. Providing effective
support requires paying attention to the following aspects of policy process, content and
coordination:
- Policy process: the process in which policy is formulated, implemented and evaluated.
Policy that is supportive and friendly to agricultural development must be participatory
and involve local stakeholders in its formulation, monitoring and review. Who
participates, how and at what stage are crucial issues. The strength of this process will
greatly influence both the content of the policy and coordination with other agencies
for providing needed inputs (see the following Figure).

- Policy content: the objectives, actions, structures, requirements and mode of delivery.
Policy aimed at improving agricultural development should consider and be adaptive
to local conditions. It should be built around accurate information of local stakeholders’
needs and goals, constraints, traditional institutions and practices and capacities for
implementation.

- Policy coordination: linkages to other policy and legislation, or supporting agencies at

different levels of government, or within other sectors. Agricultural development
 99

initiatives frequently aim to be holistic in attempts to support rural livelihoods.

Implementing agricultural development programs requires a range of actions and
support from other agencies in research, extension, education, income generation and
natural resources.

Problems can arise and weaknesses surface at each of these levels. Problems are frequently
encountered when there is:
- Lack of participation of local stakeholders in policy formulation
- Lack of participation in processes of monitoring or review
- Too much new policy or legislation at one time impeding implementation and quality
- Policy or legislation does not provide for secure tenure or clarify tenure arrangements
- Policy or regulations are inflexible and non-adaptive to local contexts
- Policy introduces new structures that weaken traditional and local authority, institutions
and practices
- Lack of clarity within policy on changed roles, responsibilities and duties
- Policies introduce new roles for government without adequate support and capacity
building
- Policy effectiveness hindered by narrow institutional goals and inadequate
coordination.
 100

Identifying where the problem is generated and how it affects other levels is crucial. It is worth
considering the macro-institutional context in which these local legal struggles have been
unfolding, because how the state ultimately resolves the contradictions inherent between legal
texts and customary practices has important implications for the livelihood of the rural
population. This is a profoundly political issue, involving relations between the modern state
and the customary local state.

7.1. Policy-making process

There is no question that effective policy-making requires lots of process. But in the end, it
requires decisiveness too. There are several stages in the establishment and carrying out of a
policy by the government. These include agenda building, formulation, adoption,
implementation, evaluation and termination. The main focus is to highlight practical tips that
can make everyone involved more effective in managing that process, participating in it, and
influencing outcomes more effectively.

Agenda building

Before a policy can be created, a problem must exist that is called to the attention of the
government. If there is an issue or problem that should be addressed by county, it has to be put
on the public agenda. Some issues are so important that there is a consensus that something
must be done. However, your issue may be in competition with others for time and attention.
The support of other members of the legislative body is needed to commit time and resources
to study the issue. A budget is needed to carry out the studies and conduct the processes needed
to bring resolution to important policy issues. There are many catalysts for new or revised
public policies. An economic calamity, such as the closing of a mill in the community, might
generate a need for a new economic development policy. The policy issues will need the
consent and support of other elected officials to place them on the local agenda.

The policy-maker must be prepared to explain why action is necessary and why this issue is
more important than other issues that compete for time, attention, and resources. What is the
problem that needs to be solved? What are the implications of not acting? What is at stake?
Why is government involvement or action required? Can someone else, such as a non-profit
entity, address this problem?
 101

Document existing conditions: Issues become part of the public agenda when there is a shared
perception that a problem must be solved, an issue resolved, or an opportunity realized. Explain
the problem and recognize that everyone does not share the same definition of problem.
Existing conditions provide a reference point against which possible actions are compared. The
task of documenting existing conditions will probably be assigned to staff. Councilmembers
must recognize that resources need to be budgeted for these staff activities.

Define goals and objectives: Policy action requires public support, or at a minimum, a working
majority of the legislative body. The development of goals is an important part of the search
for agreement. Conceptually, the idea is to move from the more general to the specific: first
reaching agreement on broad principles before getting to specific means.

Goals are qualitative in nature, for example:

- Create a community where people can live, work, and play in an environment that is
safe, vibrant, and aesthetically pleasing.
- Provide for the efficient and working environment for agricultural production.

Objectives are quantitative, providing yardsticks to measure goal achievement. Some examples
are:
- Create affordable price of fertilizers for the farming community by the year 2012.

Goal development can be a time-consuming process that requires the full attention of the
governing board. All members should participate. There will need to be give and take among
the participants. Goals should reflect what the governing board wants to accomplish. Avoid
getting too detailed. Let staff figure out how to achieve goals. Organizations cannot do
everything at once. Setting goals helps prioritize where time, energy, and resources go.

Formulation and adoption

 102

Policy formulation involves coming up with an approach to solving a problem. There may be
choice between a negative and a positive approach to a problem. This stage is carried out
systematically.

Generate alternatives: What options are there for attaining the policy-making body’s goals?
It is important to consider a range of reasonable alternatives. If alternatives favored by an
influential interest group are excluded, it will be very difficult to reach a decision that has strong
support.

- Do not prematurely lock into one choice. That will impede your ability to build a
consensus and to bring other interests over to your position.
- Be respectful of costs to government. All levels of government are expected to do more
with less. This is especially true for local government.
- Be mindful of ongoing costs. These have to be budgeted. For example, if the
organization spends money to purchase fertilizers and transport for distribution.
- Think of what it will take to implement your solution, including administrative costs.
Policy that cannot be implemented is ineffective. The more complex a solution, the
more likely it is to meet with resistance.

Identify key interest groups: This is an important step in defining criteria for evaluating
alternatives. Who else cares about this issue? How will they be impacted? Will they be
positively or negatively affected by various solutions? Which interest groups are logical allies?
Who is likely to oppose the action(s)?

Evaluate alternatives: This task will likely fall mainly to staff, and will often be addressed
through formal process requirements such as the preparation of environmental impact
statements.

Some key considerations are:

- Recognize that there are tradeoffs and costs to others. Anticipate criteria that are
important to others. You lose credibility if they are ignored. The same weight does not
have to be placed on other interests’ criteria, but the real impacts cannot be ignored. In
many cases, there are legal requirements to address the impacts.
 103

- Test the sensitivity of assumptions. How would the findings and conclusions change if
the assumptions were modified?

Decide: Even if everything is done right, some decisions are hard because they address a
difficult issue. A few points to review are:
- Recognize constraints, such as budgets, laws, and authority. Balance dreams with the
reality of what needs to be changed. Small changes can have major impacts through
time.
- Recognize that there are often more than two positions on an issue. This makes it
difficult to get a majority, much less a consensus.
- Think about how alternatives might be combined into "win-win" solutions that address
needs of multiple parties.
- Treat all parties with respect. Remember that even if you do not win this one, long-term
relationships count.

The adoption of a policy takes place only when legislation is passed, or regulations are finalized
or a decision has been passed by the council of peoples’ representative.

Implementation

Even if you have done a great job in involving all the parties, analyzing alternatives, and
achieving consensus, the process is not complete. Too many well-intentioned plans sit on a
shelf and collect dust. The carrying out of policy or its implementation is usually done by other
institutions than those that were responsible for its formulation and adoption.

Make sure that implementation responsibilities are clearly assigned. Many problems are
technically so complex and difficult that the legislature does not try to deal with them in detail.
The legislature thus indicates the broad lines of policy, and leaves the elaboration of the policy
(the details on those standards and the procedures for measuring compliance through
regulations) to other governmental agencies. Successful policy implementation depends on the
complexity of the policy, coordination between those agencies putting the policy into effect,
and compliance.
Evaluation and Termination
 104

Evaluation means determining how well a policy is working, and it is not an easy task. Policies
often have unintended consequences. Monitoring the implementation of policies and revising
them are necessary. It is better to discover (sooner than later) that the assumptions were not
correct so that early corrective action can be taken. Unintended consequences can create bigger
problems down the road. Consider former regulations that require formal policy review after a
set time period, especially if the council embarks on an untried innovative policy direction.

It is difficult to terminate policies, once they have been implemented. When they are
terminated, it is usually because the policy became obsolete, clearly did not work, or lost its
support among the interest groups.

7.2. Conflicts over tenure

One of the most contentious policy issues in farming community and land management is
security of tenure in land and forest resources. The absence of secure tenure for the
communities involved in crop farming and forest management is a characteristic feature of land
management. This issue is considered to be a primary source of conflict and resource
degradation.

Tenure is a system of mutually recognized claims to land, water and resources. It is frequently
seen to be the same as ownership, but it is not. For example, many forms of customary tenure
by indigenous people do not ascribe rights of ownership to land, but view the tribe as
“custodian”, holding rights of management and control over an ancestral estate. Nomadic
groups often seek tenure over land, but only for the purpose of moving through that land during
specific seasons of the year.

Rights can be classified as de jure tenure and de facto tenure. The former is endorsed by the
State and the latter is that which occurs in practice, but is not sanctioned by the laws of the
State. Central to the tenure issue is the predominance of common property regimes (CPRs),
which are widely held throughout the world by indigenous people over their traditional lands.
These tenure systems are fundamentally resource management systems characterized by a
limited or defined membership that regulates use of and access to natural resources and land
by its members and others. CPRs are extremely variable in form and in the rules under which
 105

they operate. For many indigenous peoples, the maintenance of CPRs is pivotal to conserving
cultural values and achieving greater political and economic autonomy.

Tenure security is fundamental to achieving local participation. Many local stakeholders will
not begin to negotiate or collaborate with the government until some actions have been taken
towards providing them with security of use and management rights. In many countries, rights
of access to and harvest of non-timber forest products are provided, but legal recognition of
traditional CPRs, or rights to land and forest, are frequently withheld.

The concept of ‘land reforms’ is a complex construct that aims to: (i) redistribute land (earlier
practice in Ethiopia); (ii) strengthen tenure and convert customary rights into statutory rights
(particularly in Africa); (iii) build the capacity of land institutions. Land redistribution has been
heavily politicized, and is frequently the target of political manipulation and cause of conflict.
Moreover, land titling programs have proved extremely costly and time-consuming, and do not
always take account of flexible ‘derived’ or ‘secondary rights’ as well as primary land
ownership rights.

7.3. Policy Framework for Agricultural Extension

In developing effective agricultural extension systems, a basic consideration is the national

policy framework within which they operate. National agricultural policies normally indicate
production targets and priorities, but rarely do they neither elaborate on the organizational
structures and objectives necessary to implement the policy nor the incentives needed to
encourage farmers to act in a manner supportive of national goals. Detailed guidelines are not
the concern of national policy, of course, but unless the general parameters are established and
promoted at the highest political levels, the likelihood of their effective enumeration and
implementation at other levels is remote.

National agricultural development policy should indicate the intended contribution of

extension to agricultural development and to a country’s particular agricultural development
strategy; moreover, it should show how they are interrelated institutionally and in the manner
of their implementation. It is not necessary for national policy statements to detail the mode of
extension, but basic parameters should be established. These should include its professional
and technical orientation, basic work responsibilities and management principles, criteria by
 106

which its effectiveness should be monitored, ways in which extension contributes to national
policy formulation and implementation, and the basic institutional arrangements linking it with
other developmental services such as agricultural research, input supply, agricultural marketing
and processing, and social programs.

The need for such a policy framework, particularly for one that endures, is seldom questioned
among people involved in extension and field-level development activities. Aside from a
possible belief that such detail is not the stuff of national policy, there are probably two main
reasons. One is ignorance; policy makers, even in agricultural ministries, may forget about
extension in the turmoil world of more urgent national priorities. A second more probable
reason is that policy makers are confused over the nature and role of extension. Being often far
removed, from the field realities of farmers’ options and decisions, they may attribute
extension’s analytic and dissemination responsibilities to research or other agencies. They may
not be convinced that extension’s primary function concerns agriculture, rather than
comprehensive social development, or that nowhere has modern, high-output farm production
been sustained without a technically trained and focused agricultural extension service. The
difficulty of effectively organizing and managing an agricultural extension service, the
multiplicity of methods and potentially involved agencies and the problems of attribution to
extension of a specific impact on production are other considerations that encourage many a
wise person to steer away from linking extension to national policy.

Extension staff members unfortunately often contribute to this situation. Policy making is not
confined to national levels, particularly when it is seen as establishing developmental
objectives and the principles by which these will be attained. At each level of operation,
extension managers and staff should be aware of extension’s explicit objectives and their roles
in attaining these. They must be able to link their activities directly to their ultimate objective
– improving the incomes and livelihood of all farmers through direct advice on production and
farm management and by influencing other farmer support services (in particular, research), to
improve their provision of relevant, timely support to farmers. The potential contributions of
different extension agencies – the public (government) service, supply and marketing
cooperatives, private input and marketing organizations, agricultural universities, private
companies and consultants, voluntary organizations, radio and television programs – should be
established, and the ways they can complement each other agreed upon. Appropriate individual
performance targets and extension service at each level need to be agreed upon and then
 107

monitored. Of course, many of these necessary steps depend on national policy, but such
guidance is likely to develop only when there is some clarity of objectives and activities within
the extension service itself. This need for an internal sense of direction and mission becomes
more necessary and influential over time because the national policy framework and the
extension organization should be national policy framework and the extension organization
should be continually modified to reflect changing national priorities and agricultural and
institutional achievements and experience.

While government can be blamed for giving inadequate attention to extension, extension itself
often has much to account for in this regard. The assignment of ineffective leaders to the
extension service – non-specialists, administrative officers, poor performers, people in need of
promotion, non-field or non-farmer people, and so on – may be identified as a prime cause of
weak extension, as indeed it is likely to be because no institution can remain effective for long
with weak leadership. But extension staff members themselves often allow, even encourage,
this situation to develop by not adequately identifying and promoting their role and
achievements in the context of national priorities. Fortunately, it is a situation that may be
readily rectified provided extension focuses on the basics – its clientele, the farmers and other
agricultural support services.

In most countries, farmers – even poor small farmers – are a significant political consideration.
Governments are generally concerned that farmers produce in order to supply non-farm
populations with food and raw materials which can also be exported. If extension serves its
clients well – helps them achieve greater incomes and to adapt effectively to the ever-changing
market economy in which all significant farming populations are involved to some degree –
they will be extension’s greatest supporters. Just as farmers demand well-trained, productive
local extension agents, so too can their support be used to demand effective management and
leadership at all levels. It is not unusual, unfortunately, for extension staff to forget that their
work makes little sense unless it serves farmers. In such circumstances, they inevitably become
seen, both by farmers and by government, as increasingly irrelevant to agricultural production,
and indeed rather as a service suitable for odd-jobs, such as the distribution of technically and
even financially irrelevant subsidies and the performance of non-agricultural monitoring and
publicity functions. Similarly, a failure to give research and other farmer-support services (even
though they are often its chief competitors for funds) comprehensive and analytic feedback on
 108

farmers’ conditions and needs is equally debilitating. If those services don’t receive such
feedback, or pressure to perform, they see no need to support extension.

From the foregoing, three ways stand out in which the enduring government commitment
necessary for effective agricultural extension can be established. One is for extension staff at
different levels to be clear about their objective and role, to be monitored according to them
and to be held accountable for meeting them. A second is for extension to keep in view its role
– to serve the farmer and farmer support services. Realistically informed of extension’s
activities and aims, farmers are fair evaluators of extension’s performance; moreover, satisfied
farmers make their support for extension known. Similarly, support services that feel the need
for extension in the light of extension’s contribution to their work will bolster extension.

Finally, even while extension’s contribution to agricultural production may be difficult to

quantity, we all know examples of good extension work. It may be the promotion of effective
soil and moisture conservation measures of less water-demanding crops in time of water
scarcity, or of giving successful direction to research to focus on an ignored cropping system
or more economically realistic production recommendations. Such examples should be
identified and analyzed, and policy makers put in contact with the farmers involved. In many
governments, senior officers in influential ministries (such as Finance and Planning and even
Agriculture) have little direct experience with the beneficiaries of the programs they can so
drastically influence.

7.4. Policy for Agricultural Innovation Systems

Policies play an important role in forming an enabling environment. There is no such thing as
a single “innovation policy” but rather a set of policies that work together to shape innovation.
Demand for certain sorts of innovation can be stimulated by policy—for example, by incentives
to adopt a certain technology or management practice. Policies may also stimulate innovation
by providing the right resources (including new knowledge from research), and support
structures (such as an educational or financial system or labor policies.

“Science and technology policy” can be described as the collective principles, declarations,
guidelines, decisions, instruments, and mechanisms intended to foster scientific and
technological development in the short term, medium term, and long term. Within an
 109

agricultural innovation system, science and technology policy might have the following general
aims:

- Promote efficient knowledge management processes capable of delivering knowledge

and technologies to all actors in the production process, to reduce failures that arise
because of poor links between actors in the innovation system.
- Contribute to poverty reduction.
- Recognize that innovation in agriculture may come from institutions that do not view
themselves as part of the agricultural sector, such as information and communications
technology, biotechnology, and systems modeling organizations.
- An especially important aim of science and technology policy is to establish an enabling
environment for innovation, perhaps by:
o Establishing an institutional body to support innovation in science and
technology and mechanisms to implement and enforce it. This body could also
coordinate with other sectors (such as trade, environment, health, and education)
to encourage working in an integrated fashion within the agricultural innovation
system.
o Redefining and strengthening government’s role in innovation so that
government becomes more of a facilitator or a promoter.
o Promoting new mechanisms for flexible joint funding.
o Promoting stakeholder engagement. For example, collaboration and system
linkages could be fostered through foresight activities and innovation platforms
(using adequate incentives). Defining adequate incentives for actors (based on
their needs and capabilities) could broaden engagement; an additional option
may be to define rules for interaction among actors in the innovation process
(for example, with respect to intellectual property rights, research funding, and
agents’ roles). Decentralization may also play a role in expanding participation.
It is important to enhance localized and varied service demand, negotiation, and
collaboration, as well as to promote the involvement of the local private sector
in research and development for agriculture and the rural sector.
o Creating and strengthening knowledge management capacities and
collaborative arrangements to promote better use of available information,
 110

knowledge, and technologies at the national, regional, and global level, in the
public and private sector.
o Developing and appropriately funding an effective infrastructure to facilitate
agricultural research and innovation.

The following points are important in assessing and developing policies supporting innovation
systems:

1. Policies may have multiple and/or unexpected effects, so it is necessary to examine:

- How policies that directly affect the agricultural sector (for example,
agricultural research and extension arrangements) may affect farmers and others
actors.
- How policies may affect inputs to the sector (for example, industrial and
education policies) and the incentives to producers and to companies (for
example, tax, land-use, transport, and tariff policies).
- How policies may affect opportunities for learning and competition in the
domestic market (for example, intellectual property rights regimes or foreign
investment policies).
2. It is crucial to recognize that policy changes in the global environment will affect local
innovation systems and thus shape the parameters within which choices about learning,
linkage, and investment will be made.
3. In addition, it is vital to explore the nature of the policy process, linkages between actors
in the different policy domains that are relevant to innovation, linkages between policy
and practice, and the existence of (and constraints to) policy learning.

7.5. Impacts of policy

Inadequate or contradictory policy and law frequently cause conflicts over land use and
management. Poorly designed or disjointed national agriculture and/or land policy can block
decisions and actions at local levels and result in unintended consequences. Similarly,
incentives to collaborate can be weakened when governments fail to reform key policy areas,
such as tenure or use rights. Such failure can reduce resource security for local people, maintain
unequal power relationships and undermine trust in government or political processes.