This policy brief presents key findings and advice on the use of biochar and Moringa oleifera (MO) seed proteins for household greywater treatment. The research aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a low-cost innovation for greywater treatment that addresses challenges regarding access to clean water, women’s and children’s water burdens and opportunities for recovering and reusing of greywater.
Tag: innovation
Developing Value Chain Innovation Platforms to Improve Food Security in Zambia
The Role of Farmers’ Entrepreneurial Orientation on Agricultural Innovations in Ugandan Multi-Stakeholder Platform
This chapter aims to shed light on the broad debate surrounding when and why farmers adopt agricultural innovations, especially in the context of multi-stakeholder platforms (MSP) seeking to scale climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices. No research has yet tested the hypothesis that farmer entrepreneurship—defined as the innovative use of agricultural resources to create opportunities for value creation—may facilitate the adoption of CSA practices. This study is intended to fill that information gap. Farmers involved in coffee and honey MSPs in the Manafwa region of Uganda filled out questionnaires that evaluated four types of entrepreneurial competences: innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness and intentions. The goal was to investigate quantitatively the influence of farmer entrepreneurship and farm characteristics on product innovation, process innovation and market innovation. Results confirmed earlier research showing that farmer educational levels have a stronger influence on process innovation than any other variable. In addition, it was shown that farm size and access to resources have a significant effect on all forms of agricultural innovation. The study also found that farm size influences entrepreneurial innovativeness in a surprising way, with smaller farms more likely than larger farms to engage in all forms of innovation. Finally, our study reveals that at least two dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation—proactiveness and innovativeness—may play a role in the adoption of agricultural innovations. These qualities, moreover, can be learned. MSPs seeking to promote innovation, including adoption of CSA practices, might consider investing in programs that help farmers develop entrepreneurial mindsets.
Developing Value Chain Innovation Platforms to Improve Food Security in East and Southern Africa
Agricultural innovation platform formation: process and lessons from Lake Kivu Pilot Learning site
Agricultural research and development approaches in sub Saharan Africa have been evolving to strengthen and make agriculture more competitive and sustainable. As such, Agricultural Innovation Platforms (AIPs), although they have a long successful history in the industrial and commercial setting, have recently been introduced for testing in the agricultural development context of Integrated Agricultural Research for development (IAR4D) by sub Saharan Africa Challenge programme (SSACP) in smallholder farming communities. They serve as ground for sharing, creation and identification of knowledge gaps relevant to planning explicit systemic innovation agricultural development strategies. This paper presents process pertaining to “good practices” for organising and forming AIPs in the context of SSACP in the Lake Kivu Pilot Learning Site (LKPLS). The lesson and experiences are shared across seven stages, namely; team and resource mobilisation, contextualisation of the process of AIP formation, derivation of principles for AIP formation, elaboration of guidelines/steps to be followed in initiating AIPs, orientation/ consultation with local administration, and AIP initiation and formation. Through AIP implementation, it has been realised that AIP formation process incorporates all essential ingredients for successful innovation process at once, cultivating a niche for local innovators. It was also realised that AIPs in different locations due to difference in challenges and vision and composition of actors. The form and nature of AIP formation process depends on the conceptual and local context, socio-economic, culture, biophysical and political environment in which it is being formed.
15 Years of Change: Gender, livelihood and resource access changes in a matrilineal part of Sumatera
The theory of induced innovation (Hayami and Ruttan1985) argue that both technological and institutional innovation that scare resources occur in response to changing resources endowment. When natural resources became scare, the property right institution evolved from open access to more individualized ownership. This evolution of tenure often erode women’s land right (Lastaria-Cornhiel1997). This study compared two data set in 1997 and 2013 in the matrilineal inheritance system in Sumatera, Indonesia to analyze the implications for gender equity of different patterns of evolution of land tenure and land use decision
Proceedings of a Multi-stakeholder Workshop in Solwezi, Zambia. Multi-stakeholder Workshop Report
The workshop brought together multiple stakeholders interested in the selected value chains (Solwezi beans, soya beans and village chicken). The three value chains were selected based on a selection criteria endorsed by the local community where the project is being implemented. The aim of the workshop was to develop an understanding between stakeholders and bring on board those interested in jointly working together towards improving markets and household incomes. The workshop convened farmers, farmer associations, traders, processors, the private sector, financial institutions and government ministries operating in Solwezi district.
An innovative strategy to reward Asia’s upland poor for preserving and improving our environment – in Khmer Language
The Rewards for, Use of, and Shared Investment in, Pro-poor Environmental Services (RUPES) project, phase 2 (2008 12), coordinated by the World Agroforestry Centre, was the second stage of the introduction of the concept of rewarding people to protect or enhance environmental services that benefit businesses and the wider population. The programme was designed to follow-up and expand on the lessons learned in RUPES 1 in Indonesia, the Philippines, Viet Nam, Nepal, India and China. The ultimate target group for RUPES 2 was indigenous forest dwellers and smallholding farmers in less productive environments that were vulnerable to environmental degradation and climate change. Activities aimed at the national policies and the ‘buyer’ and ‘broker’ part of the rewards for environmental services (RES) value chain were aimed at long-term sustainability of benefits for the primary target group. RUPES 2 gave ample consideration to innovative approaches that targeted fair and efficient schemes for RES.
Innovation platforms: A tool for scaling up sustainable land management innovations in the highlands of eastern Uganda
Sustainable Land Management (SLM) technologies for preventing land degradation have been pilot tested in highlands of eastern Uganda with success and are available for uptake by farmers in the zone. Despite the available technologies and successful pilot experiments, the effect and uptake of the SLM innovations still remains insignificant. This has been attributed to lack of incentives, innovative institutional governance structures and policy processes to accelerate uptake and utilisation of SLM technologies. Innovation systems approach was experimented in scaling up SLM innovations in the highlands of Eastern Uganda. Stakeholders were organised into platforms and empowered to promote SLM practices in the landscape. Members of IPs selected the SLM innovations and implemented them with support from National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO). More households adopted SLM practices including trenches, contour bunds and agroforestry. Twenty three tree nurseries were established and over 350,000 tree seedlings distributed for planting. The platforms facilitated collective visioning, sharing of skills and knowledge and strengthened participation of local governments in research and promotion of SLM technologies. When well initiated and operationalised, innovation platforms are effective avenues for scaling up adoption of SLM innovations to a wider landscape and communities.
Improving household incomes and reducing deforestation using rotational woodlots in Tabora District, Tanzania
Increasing smallholder incomes and improving the environment are often viewed as conflicting objectives. Rotational woodlots in Tanzania appear to help farmers generate substantial income while at the same time conserving forest area. In the rotational woodlot system, farmers intercrop food crops with leguminous trees during the first 2–3 years, leave the trees to grow, harvest the trees in the 5th year, and replant food crops. Of three species planted in an on-farm trial involving 60 farmers, Acacia crassicarpa (A. Cunn. ex Benth.) performed best, attaining a height 96% higher and a root collar diameter 76% higher, than the second ranked species, Acacia jurifera (Benth.). In spite of higher costs and a longer payoff period, the crassicarpa woodlot achieved returns to land 6.3 times greater, and returns to labor 2.0 times greater, than the maize (Zea mays L.)-fallow system. Farmers use fuelwood to cure tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and they greatly appreciate substituting relatively abundant land and slack season labor for scarce cash required for purchasing fuelwood that is harvested in the forest. Adoption of rotational woodlots in Tabora District alone can conserve 8675 ha forest per year, or 0.8% of total wooded area in the district. Farmers’ interest is high and 87% of those involved in the trial have expanded their area under woodlots. Research and development projects can benefit individual farmers and society by helping them to make the transition from depleting forest resources to planting trees on their own farms.