An FAO E-mail Conference on Agricultural Innovation Systems and Family Farming: The Moderator's Summary

"The large volume of messages and the tremendous enthusiasm with which people discussed the various issues highlights that the topic of agricultural innovation systems and their potential impact on family farming is currently of major interest."

From June-July 2012, people around the world took part in a moderated email conference on the theme of "Ensuring the full participation of family farmers in agricultural innovation systems [AIS]: Key issues and case studies". AIS are systems of individuals, organisations, and enterprises that bring new products, processes, and forms of organisation into social and economic use to achieve food security, economic development, and sustainable natural resource management. This summary document first describes the background to the conference, explains why it was held and the process leading up to it, and summarises discussions on the issues that received most attention in the conference, which was organised by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Approximately 560 people subscribed to the email conference, of whom 114 people (20% of the total), from nearly 50 different countries, wrote at least one of the 242 messages that were posted. Almost 80% of messages came from people living in developing countries. They discussed the question: What are the key opportunities and hurdles for family farmers to engage in, and benefit from, AIS, and what can policymakers do to increase potential opportunities and remove potential hurdles? The email conference allowed participants to discuss these issues, as well as to share case studies and lessons learned from practical experiences in agriculture (including the crop, livestock, forestry, fishery, and aquaculture sectors).

The positive role that the rapid and revolutionary developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play to ensure that family farmers may fully participate in AIS was, according to this summary report, probably the single issue that attracted most attention throughout the conference. Detailed below are the importance of ICT-related and other issues discussed during the conference:

• Farmer innovations: Conference participants shared information about several initiatives, many of which use ICTs. For example, Digital Green documents farmer innovations in India using video and then shows the videos in villages to share knowledge with other farmers. "While farmers are experimenting and innovating independently, closer links with formal scientific research were called for to allow independent scientific validation of the merits of the innovations and to allow the scientific community to learn from and build on the farmer innovations."
• Farmers organisations: "It was argued that their empowerment through collective action in farmer organizations (FOs) would provide family farmers with a wide range of different advantages in key areas of AIS....Participants noted that...although FOs are very important, specific individuals ('champions') can also play a key role in AIS." According to the report, "[t]he inspiration provided by a single journalist/farmer in the Philippines is a good example."
• Access to market, which "provides incentives for farmers to produce more and to use innovations".
• Research and extension, although it was suggested that they "had to become more demand-driven and their roles and functioning needed to change so that research organizations, extension agencies and farmers were more closely interlinked and that there was better communication and coordination between them." According to the report, "[c]hanging the mindsets of researchers, extension agents and farmers to enable them to collaborate was cited as one of the critical issues for AIS."
• Risk associated with innovation: "If wishing to support AIS and ensure that AIS benefit resource-poor family farmers, this key issue needs to be addressed and understood."
• Women farmers: "There was consensus in the conference that greater recognition should be given to the central role that women farmers play in agriculture, rural development and food security and that equal and full attention should be given both to men and women farmers to enable them to participate in, and benefit from, AIS." Giving less weight to women farmers than men farmers in AIS might mean that the innovations developed favour men; numerous initiatives to redress the situation were cited in the email conference. For example, in Indonesia, where older male farmers traditionally tend to make decisions regarding farming activities, farmer field schools (FFS) are allowing women and youth to be more fully engaged. In Pakistan, women open schools (WOS) are used as a tool for educating women, initially focusing on pesticides but later expanded to a wide range of activities; they are flexible, with mothers able to bring their children with them.
• Youth: "[F]arming needs to be made more attractive to prevent them moving to non-agricultural activities." One proposal: nusiness-oriented training materials prepared specifically for young farmers, using textbooks and pamphlets as well as electronic media. Wider use of ICTs, such as mobile phone technologies, in farming was another suggestion made for helping increase the appeal of agriculture to young people.
• ICTs: "Particular focus was given to mobile phone technologies which, albeit not without challenges, can be used successfully for different purposes in AIS, such as bringing farmers closer to markets; linking farmers to each other and to extension agents; giving farmers improved access to technical knowledge; and for documentation of farmer innovations." Participants cited several examples where these technologies are being used, such as in Tamil Nadu, India, where women farmers send pictures of sick sheep by SMS (text messages) to the veterinary university to diagnose problems. "The role of radio was also underlined, because of its wide acceptability, availability, low cost and use of local languages."
• Innovation brokers: "To make AIS work better, participants saw a key role for innovation brokers....There seemed to be consensus that innovation brokers did not have to be specialized organizations and that different kinds of AIS stakeholders could potentially play this role."