ABSTRACT
Do farmer innovators have some common characteristics? What triggers them to innovate? Where do they get their ideas? In which fields are they innovating? To what extent are their innovations spreading and how? It is clear that any generalization is full of pitfalls on account of the considerable socioeconomic and agroecological differences within and between countries in Africa. What may appear to be true in the Yatenga region of Burkina Faso need not hold true for another part of the country, let alone for other countries in Africa. Here we discuss some of the characteristics of the farmer innovators who have been identified thus far through the ISWC 2 and PFI programmes. The results may say more about improvements that could be made in the methodology of the farmer innovation approach than about the traits of innovators.
