Year: 2011
Type: book
Abstract: Recent developments have led to widespread changes in the role of the public sector for agricultural extension (Rivera, 2011).Many extension organisations that used to be publically funded have been privatised.Furthermore, our awareness of the complex relation between agriculture and sustainability (Veldkamp et al., 2009) has changed the nature of the innovation processes that extension used to foster (Leeuwis and Aarts, 2011), and also the professional situation as change agents encounter it (Cerf, Guillot & Olry, 2011).As a consequence, governments in many countries need to revisit the ways in which they support agricultural innovation.Facilitated networks for innovation policy are seeing increasing public interest as a new instrument for governments.Such networks offer opportunities to combine financial and technical resources, and they offer the infrastructure that is necessary for spreading and sharing knowledge and information.They can play an important role in agricultural and rural innovation processes (Klerkx & Leeuwis, 2009).However, little is known about the relation between these networks and the process of innovation.Does it matter whether sustainability challenges require gradual or abrupt change (e.g., Cerf, Guillot & Olry, 2011; Loorbach & Rotmans, 2006)?Should support networks be specific for phase of innovation (cf.Regeer, Mager & Van Oorsouw, 2011)?Do value differences (Hisschemöller & Hoppe, 1995-96) change the requirements for network composition?Facilitated networks can take many different forms such as innovation platforms, farmer field schools and peer learning structures.Extension/advisory services can acts as network facilitators.In this contribution, we explore how various networks, in terms of their composition and activities, are related to the composition and activities of facilitated 1 Education and Competence Studies Group 2 Arable Farming, Multifunctional Agriculture and Field Production of Vegetables
Language: English
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1556778840