[hepr-vn] IFPRI Policy Brief No. 11: Knowledge and Innovation for Agricultural Development

[Vern Weitzel]

http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/bp/bp011.asp

Kwadwo Asenso-Okyere and Kristin Davis
March 2009

download full text (PDF 103K)
http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/bp/bp011.pdf

introduction

Every day, millions of rural people who depend on agriculture confront 
technical, economic, social, cultural, and traditional obstacles to improving 
their livelihoods. To cope with these obstacles, the rural poor draw on 
indigenous knowledge and innovate through local experimentation and adaptation. 
Indigenous knowledge alone, however, is not enough to deal with the complex 
problems facing the agricultural sector. Emerging issues such as high food 
prices, climate change, and demands for biofuels require complementary knowledge 
from formal agricultural research and development (R&D) and support from 
policies and other institutions. Formal and informal knowledge and innovation 
must therefore be linked to accelerate sustainable agricultural development.

Knowledge, defined as organized or processed information or data, is fundamental 
in the pursuit of innovation. For innovation to occur, knowledge must be 
created, accumulated, shared, and used. Innovations—new ideas, practices, or 
products that are successfully introduced into economic or social processes— can 
involve technologies, organizations, institutions, or policies. Innovation means 
putting ideas, knowledge, and technology to work in a manner that brings about a 
significant improvement in performance or product quality.

Advancing agricultural development requires knowledge and innovation in several 
key areas:

Technology. While many good technologies are “on the shelf,” emerging issues 
such as climate change require new research to develop drought-resistant, 
flood-resistant, and short-duration crop varieties.

Institutions. More socioeconomic research is needed to understand institutional 
constraints to innovating to improve livelihoods. Institutions are the system of 
rules that constitutes the environment within which innovations occur— laws, 
regulations, traditions, customs, beliefs, norms, and nuances of society.
Policies. Appropriate, relevant, and timely public interventions are needed to 
promote and facilitate the creation, sharing, and use of knowledge for innovations.

Organizations. Public and private groups and companies must innovate to become 
more effective and efficient in the services they provide.
To foster innovations in agriculture, policymakers must scale up investments in 
agricultural science and technology, research and extension, agricultural 
education and training, and farmer organizations and other local 
institutions—and do so in ways that will spread advances in knowledge and 
innovation as widely as possible.