Innovation System from Small Farmers Perspective* K J Joseph - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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 private sector, CSOs and the enabling policy environment, and

• ther disciplines/sectors.

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

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
• rganizations 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

• thers.
• 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

• f 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

• wn.

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.

• Innovation systems in developing countries

are obviously different from those in advanced economies ( Lorentzen 2011)

• This is not the case of “nothing is the same”

but rather of “not everything is the same” Lorentzen (2009)

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

AIS and small farmers innovations

• AIS did recognize the importance of small farms and the

need for empowering them.

• It is also recognized that in the innovations having greater

interest to the poor often neglected.

• This exclusion will not be resolved by establishing

partnerships among the poor. Closed networks of poor people rarely yield useful and sustainable innovations (Rajalahti et al 2008).

• The suggested approach is to link them with private sector

and CSOs

• Thus small farmers will have to wait until the private sector

finds it a profitable venture to associate with small farmers

• r until the CSOs are adequately altruistic.

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

AIS and small farmers innovations

• NIS considers that firms (both small and large) – the basic units in

an industry that transforms inputs into output- are at the centre stage of innovation process

• Hence the NIS perspective makes the case for facilitating

institutional context that foster their interactive learning and innovation.

• In the AIS perspective despite farms, - basic units in agriculture that

transform inputs into outputs – are not explicitly recognized for their ability to innovate but are seen simply as users of innovations

• r as one of actors in the interactive learning
• Hence they don’t deserve any support for innovation. Capability, if

any by the small farms, could be addressed by their SHGs/CSOs (World Bank 2012)

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

AIS and small farmers innovations

• There is a growing evidence indicating that resource poor, small-scale

farmers, with intimate knowledge of their natural landscapes conduct experiments and observe subtle changes over time; thus are innovative by themselves.

• Rather than being blind adopters of the innovation offered from above,

they continually develop better ways of managing resources and

• vercome local challenges by synthesizing local and scientific knowledge

systems and applying them to changing circumstances (Sanginga 2009)

• They integrate new varieties and technologies into their management

practices, blending knowledge systems, and make decisions based on cultural preferences and local contexts

• Women play particularly important role in on-farm innovation relating to

conservation and nutrition (Bragdon 2015).

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

• Since there is lack of systematic research

concerning innovation by the ‘bottom billion’ Lorentzen (2010) innovation by small farmers, by and large, remains undocumented.

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

• Even when farmers are included in AIS, heavy emphasis on

the role of institutions and organizations introducing innovation to farmers and facilitating technology adoption still remain (Kraemer-Mbula and Wamae 2010).

• Kraemer-Mbula and Wamae (2010) argue that while SSFs

have been made the target beneficiaries of investment in science and technology, and investment has been re-

• rientated towards making production systems more

ecologically sustainable, these changes do not represent transformative shifts in perspective.

• The significance of farmers’ role in innovation processes

remains largely unacknowledged and the asymmetrical power relationship between formal and informal actors remains unchanged (QUNO 2015)

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

AIS and small farmers innovations

• Wu and Zhang (2013) define small farmer innovation as any technology,

invention or improvement made by rural people to cope with the complexity of local resource, ecological, economic and social conditions (citing Chambers et al 1989; Biggs 1990; Wortmann et al 2005).

• Though the local specific problems that induce them to innovate is too

insignificant for the national/global players, they are crucial for the food security, employment and environmental sustainability of the small farmers.

• Research at HSRC has also shown that the “local is lekker” (Mhula-Links et

al 2015)

• The challenge is to
• a. Facilitate integration between different technologies like traditional/small

farmer/informal/grass root with modern technologies like ICT

• b. Proving a institutional context for help enhancing their innovation capacity
• Instead of their integration with private sector – which is most likely to

lead to subordinated inclusion

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

Three paradigms in agricultural Innovations

(QUNO 2015)

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

AIS and small farmers innovations

• Thus viewed, a proper understanding of NIS in

the South calls for articulating AIS by assigning the role that the small farmers deserve as innovators by themselves

• Recognizing their potential role in innovation and

building an institutional architecture that facilitates their competence building is likely to help addressing food security, rural employment, livelihood and environmental sustainability.

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

• Small farmer innovations in India: a case of

benign state neglect

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

Small farmer innovations in India: a case of benign state neglect?

• India is one of the pioneering developing

countries in recognizing the role ST& I in economic development

• The Science Policy Resolution 1958, at the

instance of the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, stated “science alone could solve the problems of hunger and poverty, insanitation and illiteracy, vast resources running waste of a rich country inhabited by starving people”

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

Small farmer innovations in India: a case of benign state neglect?

• Phase I: Pursuit of self reliance: witnessed attempts

towards building up of S&T infrastructure under public sector for building technological capability and self reliance; providing access to foreign technology along with domestic R&D efforts to adapt the imported technology to local conditions

• An elaborate S&T infrastructure under CSIR, ICMR,

ICAR and other departments like Department of Atomic Energy, Department of space, Department of S&T, Defense Research and Development Organization and others.

• A unique patent Act 1970
• Top down approach and STI mode of innovation

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

Small farmer innovations in India: a case of benign state neglect?

• The outcomes
• Elaborate organizational set up for industrial and

agricultural R&D

• Green revolution – self sufficiency in food
• Competence in strategic sectors; defense, atomic

energy and space

• Substantial reduction in inequality; but low growth

rate till 1980s

• Laid the foundation for the emergence of a vibrant ICT

sector

• Though growth rate picked up in 1980s crisis of 1990-

91 leading to a paradigm shift

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

Small farmer innovations in India: a case of benign state neglect?

• Phase II: Globally integrated innovation for international

competitiveness

• High growth with growing inequality
• 2010s declared as the decade of innovation by the resident
• Road map for the decade of innovation with focus on

inclusive innovations – by the office of Prime M

• Called for increasing R&D investment and efforts, but argued that

this view of innovation is based on a myopic perception that restricts it to the confines of formal R&D

• Laid down a new paradigm that extends beyond products and

patents to focus on innovation for/of and by the people at the bottom of the pyramid to create a more inclusive model of development which is environmentally sustainable.

• Here again one finds a need based approach not a capability

based approach and making the poor to wait until the private sector finds frugal innovation a profitable enterprise.

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

Small farmer innovations in India: a case of benign state neglect?

• There are numerous evidence to suggest that small

farmers have been innovative although there is hardly any systematic data exists.

• National Innovation Foundation (2013) states that a

database of more than 1,74,000 ideas, innovations and traditional knowledge practices from over 550 districts

• f the country (out of 707 in 2016) have been

generated through the help of Honey Bee Network.

• A large proportion of these innovations located by the

Honey bee network are related to agriculture and contributed by either small farmers and those engaged in farming related activities.

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

Small farmer innovations in India: a case of benign state neglect?

• Based on a study of ten small farmer innovations/Grass

root innovations from Andhra Pradesh NAIP observed that they are often need based and are the result of solutions to local problems.

• The major inferences drawn from the study included:
• Lack of formal connectivity between R&D and the

grassroots/rural innovations systems

• Inadequate up scaling and validation opportunities for GRIs
• Inadequate finance for product development
• Grassroots rural innovations are sustainable in local

ecosystem

• However, formalization of such innovations from the

informal sector is often complex (NAIP 2014).

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

Small farmer innovations in India: a case of benign state neglect?

• A large number of NGOs are working closely with farmers innovations with varying
• perspectives. (Abrol et al 2016; Gupta et al 2003).
• The role of the state, as of now, is limited to the meager financial support offered

to National Innovation Foundation

• So far with the help of NIF 39 patents have been granted; in India and four in the

US; 19 applications were filed under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 12 Design Registrations and 15 Trademark applications.

• Grassroot Technological Innovation Acquisition Fund (GTIAF) in 2012 to acquire

rights to technologies from the innovators for generating public goods.

• 24 farmers from 8 states, who had developed over 39 improved varieties of 15

crops received Rs 120,000 from the GTIAF

• NIF has funded 183 projects to the extent of Rs. 23 million. (Ustyuzhantseva 2015)
• Many technologies have diffused through farmer-to-farmer social network.
• While these efforts under NIF are highly laudable, in a vast country like India,

much more needs to be done

• There is hardly any attempt at integrating SSF innovations with ICT in a country

known to be IT superpower from the South.

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

Small farmer innovations in India: a case of benign state neglect?

• The formal knowledge generation (agricultural research)

component received less than 0.4 percent of agricultural GDP during 1990-2009 (Raina, 2012).

• During the same period, subsidy for technological inputs ranged

from 8 to 11 percent of agricultural GDP (Raina 2015).

• Call for the second green revolution has been made in the wake of

productivity stagnation since mid 1980s.

• The recent call has been for a double green revolution - sustainable

intensification to address the twin issues of hunger and environmental sustainability.

• Though there is a need for institutional reform, research and policy-

making arenas continues to be in the same linear, top-down, hierarchical and prescriptive mode

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

• Though production of food was the major policy

instrument deployed, the average rate of growth

• f yield per year fell from 4.4 % (between 1980-

90) to 2.8 % (between 1991-98) and further to 0.6 % between 1999-2009 (Gillespie et al, 2011).

• No wonder, India continues to be the home for

the largest number of poor in the world along with much less remarkable performance even term of conventional indicators like land and labour productivity, production per hectare (Vaidyanathan, 2010).

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

• Small farmer innovations: cases from India

and China

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

Case of cardamom from Kerala, India

• Export oriented crop failing to compete due to low productivity and

high cost of production

• Further adverse environmental effect due to share regulation

associated with its cultivation

• Productivity of traditional variety was 60-70 Kg per acre;

Guatemala’s productivity – 300 Kg

• Organised R&D did not succeed
• A small farmer evolved a new variety with productivity as high as

500 per acre

• Other farmers followed and came up new varieties with

characteristics like high oil content, draught resistance;

• Four farmers receiving National Innovation awards
• There were also innovations by farmers for curing the product by

evolving energy efficient curing techniques

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

• Innovations in cultural practices led to
• Reduction the cost of cultivation
• Reduced effect on environment since area was brought under

cultivation by planting tress

• Enhanced quality of the product and
• Higher price realization
• Today with this new variety and new cultural practices, the crop has

been widely cultivated and the new varieties developed by the small farmers account for almost 100% of the area a under cultivation

• Production increased from around 2500 MT during late 1980s to

around 30000 MT in 2016

• State: A passive spectator?

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

Case of Chinese onion, Tianjin

• New variety of Chinese onion “Wu Yeqi” developed at the

instance of Chen Guangxing in Baodi County, Tianjin province

• The average yield was 3400 kg per mu, while other varieties

were only 1500-2000 kg.

• In addition to the farmers cooperative and farmers

association Chen set up the Jinbao Chinese Onion and Garlic Research Institute with the support from the local government

• The Institute's research team was made up of farmer

experts from the association, technicians from the Tianjin Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the teachers of a local agriculture school

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

• At instance of the institute, different innovations related to cultural

practices were brought about that included

• Increasing the germination rate
• Protecting “Wu Yeqi” from Floods (receiving award)
• Innovations in spacing
• Wheat and Chinese Onions in rotation
• Improving the plough
• Flies Replacing Honey Bees
• In undertaking such research, the institute received research support from

the local government

• Mr Chen and his association was also honoured with many awards

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

• Concluding observations: implications for

innovation system research in the South

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

• We started with the premise that innovation in agriculture remains

fundamental for poverty reduction, rural livelihood security, economic growth and environmental sustainability in many of Southern economies of the 21st century

• We have argued that AIS approach, drawing from the NIS

perspective, has to go a long way in help understanding the process

• f innovation in the agrarian economies of the south.
• It is because AIS as it stands today seems to be not reflective of the

southern realities and the the prescriptions that emerge may not help addressing their concerns and the current challenges

• The heterogeneity among farmers and the predominance of small

farmers who, despite being confronted with multiple forms of exclusion that barriers to interactions are innovative in their own right which needs to be recognized

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

• Instead of making them wait until the private sector

finds it a profitable venture to commercialize their innovations (ala India), there is the need for

• A. appropriate institutional interventions to enhance

their innovative capabilities (ala China) and

• B. empower them by harnessing ICTs.
• At the same time, our understanding on the factors

and forces at work in the process of innovation by the small farmers/informal sector along with the barriers to interactive learning and forms of exclusion at best remain rudimentary

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.

• Let me conclude with the words of Lotentzen

(2011) “A poor country that invests little in R&D is not necessarily one in which no innovation takes place. It is only when innovation in low income countries becomes better understood that policy can address problems whose solutions have eluded the poor for long time”

2 March 2017. KJ Joseph. HSRC Annual Innovation & Development Lecture 2017.