| dcterms.abstract | Effective agricultural transformation will only be rooted in an approach that generates returns
for the smallholder farmers and other stakeholders in the sector in a sustainable manner. Such
an approach needs to regard agriculture as a system and use a best-partnership arrangement
that engages all the necessary stakeholders along the different commodities and system value
chains or value webs. This thinking led to the development of the Sub-Saharan Africa
Challenge Program (SSA CP) in 2004. The aim of the SSA CP is to facilitate a substantial
increase in the impact of agricultural research and development (ARD) for improved rural
livelihood, increased food security and sustainable natural resource management throughout
sub-Saharan Africa. To achieve this objective, the SSA CP proposed a new approach to
conduct agricultural research, named Integrated Agricultural Research for Development
(IAR4D). This approach entails a multisectoral orientation to problem diagnosis and draws
on integrated approaches using “hard” and “soft” sciences to provide solutions, while making
the most of the available resources. This concept is premised on an “innovation systems”
approach and requires systemic interaction among all stakeholders around a specific
commodity or production system. This paper discusses thinking around this concept and
highlights the challenges and benefits of adopting IAR4D in sub-Saharan Africa.
Keywords: integrated agricultural research for development, innovation systems, innovation
platforms, agricultural transformation | |
