Interrogating Agricultural Innovation System from Small Farmers ’ Perspective* K J Joseph Ministry of Commerce Chair CDS, Trivandrum Kerala India Editor-in-Chief, Innovation and Development & Vice President Globelics *This presentation is based on the ongoing work with Prof Liyan Zhang, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, China. 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
As we proceed • Technology, innovation and agriculture: changing paradigms – From NARS to NAKIS to AIS • Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) • AIS and small farmer innovations • Small farmer innovations in India: a case of benign state neglect? • Small Farmer innovations: cases from India and China • Concluding observations: implications for innovation system research in the South 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
Technology, innovation and agriculture: changing paradigms • Agricultural societies, over time, have created new organizations and institutional arrangements towards technological changes in the agricultural sector • The earliest approach was the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) framework – mainly at the instance of colonial powers - promote export-oriented cash crop production – strengthening research capacity, knowledge production • Later this approach got extended to food production – green revolution - with considerable success and it prevailed for decades. • The process involved a top down, linear approach • The agricultural production process that emerged turned to be highly chemical-intensive, fossil fuel-dependent, organized in large single-crop farms and a major contributor to climate change, bio diversity loss and the degradation of land and freshwater ecosystems. 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
Technology, innovation and agriculture: changing paradigms • The disenchantment with the top-down, linear, supply driven approach and its associated undesirable outcomes gave way to National Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems (NAKIS) • The NAKIS included the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS), the National Agricultural Extension System (NAES), and the National Agricultural Education and Training System (NAETS). • Research is a necessary but not sufficient condition • NAKIS model with its focus restricted on formal actors and processes in the rural environment, failed to acknowledge the role of markets (especially input and output markets), the 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC private sector, CSOs and the enabling policy environment, and Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017. other disciplines/sectors.
Agricultural innovation system • Latest development in this paradigm shift is the Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) which is based on the National Innovation System perspective (NIS). • NIS perspective emerged from the pioneering contributions made by Lundvall (1985; 1992) Freeman (1987), Nelson (1993), Equist 1996) who were dissatisfaction with the linear approach to innovation along with its unrealistic assumptions. • Knowledge is the key resource and learning is the key process, which is an interactive and socially embedded process • STI mode of interaction and DUI mode of interaction • learning divide at the root of development divide • The process of innovation, its diffusion and its outcome crucially depends on the extent of interactive learning within the given institutional context and the co-evolution of the system in response to changes within and outside the system. 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
Agricultural innovation system • The NSI perspective originated from the “industrial experience” in the context of small developed countries that are culturally homogenous and socio economically coherent. • Hence its relevance in developing countries has been questioned • However, there is a consensus that it provides a focusing device for exploring interactive learning, innovation and competence building of actors and organizations involved along with the institutional context that facilitate this process. • Exploiting this characteristics of NSI, scholars searching for alternatives to the prevailing paradigm in agriculture evolved the Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) perspective. 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
Elements of Agricultural Innovation System (Rajalahti et al 2008) 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
Agricultural innovation system • Viewed through the lens of NSI these scholars argued that in agriculture innovation emerges from interaction and knowledge flows between research and entrepreneurial organizations in the public and private sectors (Hall and Clark (1995), Engel (1997) and Hall et al. (2001, 2003), World Bank 2006;2012 among others) • This is in contrast to the generally held view that research organizations produced new knowledge that the farmers blindly adopted. • This implies that innovation could have multiple sources, not confined only to formal research organizations but to other actors like private sector, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), farmers and others. • Interactions could be both STI and DUI 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
Characterizing NARS, NAKIS and NIS 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
• AIS and small farmers innovations 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
AIS and small farmers innovations • The key issue is whether NIS could be translated to AIS wherein the focus of attention is “farm behavior especially of small farms” which is not sequel to the firm behavior • FAO (2014) argues that about 500 family farms, representing more than nine out of ten farms in the world, are at the center of the solution for achieving food security and sustainable rural development • FAO further makes the case for promoting capacity to innovate at multiple levels; and calls for enabling the small- scale farmers to collectively act and innovate. • This lead us to reflect on the reality in the agrarian economies of the South. 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
AIS and small farmers innovations • The agrarian reality is evident from the fact that over 70% of the global poor are the rural and agrarian • This could be understood by drawing from – Amartya Sen (1999) idea of development as freedom Capability deficits; entitlement failures and lack of freedoms – NSI perspective as Barriers to interactive learning, innovation and competence building of individuals and and organizations While Sen calls for public action; NSI calls for facilitating institutional context 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
AIS and small farmers innovations Capability deficits, entitlement failures and lack of freedoms along with barriers to interactive learning, innovation and competence building of individuals and and organizations • Get manifested in multiple spaces of exclusion as articulated by Amartya Sen (2000) • Such exclusion may take the form of • Active exclusion : happens when exclusion come about through policies directly aimed at that result; • Passive exclusion: result from policies that have not been devised to bring about that result but nevertheless have such consequences 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
AIS and small farmers innovations • Constitutive exclusion : happens when being excluded is in itself a deprivation which can be of intrinsic importance on its own. Cases of such exclusion include inability to read and write or not being able to join the labour market due to physical disabilities. • Instrumental exclusion : refers exclusions that may not be depriving by themselves, but can lead to deprivation through consequences of great instrumental importance. Not having a credit market may not be depriving by itself but it could have consequences of deprivations 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
AIS and small farmers innovations • There could also be subordinated inclusion or illusive inclusion which are not transient but sustained for a long time (Joseph 2014) • These multiple forms of exclusion could be widely prevalent in the agrarian context of most developing countries • This leads to a situation wherein the small farmers get excluded, from the net works and also from the process of interactive learning and competence building process, which explains the current state agrarian economies • To say the least, the learning, innovation and competence building systems that exists in the “southern small farmer agriculture” along with the institutional context is significantly at variance with the context from which NIS originated • Thus within the agrarian South there could be strong North- South divide and farmers cannot be considered a homogenous category 2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.
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