ABSTRACT
Agricultural research and development in Africa is undergoing a major paradigm shift, embracing an innovation systems perspective while, at the same time, implementing large agricultural development initiatives based on the ‘technology-push’ model. This book, like the Innovation Africa Symposium (IAS) from which it is derived, focuses the spotlight on a subject that is attracting increasing attention from researchers and practitioners in Africa. The innovation systems approach shifts attention away from research and the supply of scientific knowledge and technologies to an interactive multi-stakeholder process of change in which technology dissemination and market development are only some elements of the system. The contributors to this book argue that creating opportunities in small-scale African agriculture suggests moving to a new notion of innovation, from pushing technologies to creating opportunities through institutional development. This implies that agricultural innovation and the articulation of its challenges and opportunities need to be framed as an integrated technical, organizational, institutional and policy issue.
