Context

There is growing recognition that sustainable development of smallholder agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa requires a systems approach. One response to this has been applying the agricultural innovation systems concept and the use of Innovation Platforms (IP) as tools for agricultural development. By providing social space and facilitating interactions among farmers, researchers and other stakeholders, IPs can promote collective action and foster innovation.

Objective

The question is, how effective are these IPs in stimulating innovation that can be sustained beyond their lifetime, and can they be used to link issues across multiple scales? The case study reported here examined the effect of a multilevel IP structure in achieving smallholder livestock innovation outcomes in the Ethiopian Highlands.

Methods

Two years after the multilevel IPs were phased out, focus group discussions and key informant interviews with multiple stakeholders from all levels of the IP were undertaken to collect qualitative data on the innovation processes and analysed using thematic analysis.

Results and Conclusions

Our findings indicate that a series of IPs inter-linked across scales facilitated researcher-led technical innovations that enhanced farmers and livestock experts' capacity around feed technologies. The multilevel IPs also improved linkages and strengthened partnerships between actors within and across levels to effectively implement farm-level technologies. However, sustained innovation requires creating a shared understanding among actors on the complex nature of the various value chain issues that need to be addressed to achieve meaningful change. Specifically, we found that farmers lack access to affordable services. This requires integrating value chain concepts within multilevel IPs at the early stages of formation to engage relevant actors across levels to stimulate multiple interventions beyond the farm-level.

Significance

Changes are needed at the organisational level to facilitate reconfiguration of resources and devolution of responsibilities to support the innovation process. The existence of power dynamics and an institutional context favouring the status quo are key issues that need to be considered when building and evaluating effective multilevel IPs to achieve inclusive value chain innovations.

中文翻译：

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发展小农户牲畜系统的多层次创新平台：它们的有效性如何？

语境

人们日益认识到，撒哈拉以南非洲小农农业的可持续发展需要采取系统的方法。对此的一种应对方法是应用农业创新系统的概念，并将创新平台（IP）用作农业发展的工具。通过提供社会空间并促进农民，研究人员和其他利益相关者之间的互动，知识产权可以促进集体行动并促进创新。

目的

问题是，这些IP在激发可以持续一生的创新方面效果如何，并且可以将它们用于跨多个规模的问题之间进行联系吗？此处报道的案例研究检查了多层次知识产权结构在埃塞俄比亚高地实现小农户牲畜创新成果方面的作用。

方法

在逐步淘汰多层次IP之后的两年，与来自IP各个级别的多个利益相关者进行了焦点小组讨论和关键知情人访谈，以收集有关创新过程的定性数据，并使用主题分析进行了分析。

结果与结论

我们的发现表明，一系列跨规模相互联系的IP促进了研究人员主导的技术创新，从而增强了农民和畜牧专家围绕饲料技术的能力。多层次的知识产权还改善了各级内部和跨部门之间的联系并加强了伙伴关系，以有效地实施农场级技术。但是，持续创新需要参与者之间就各种价值链问题的复杂性质达成共识，以实现有意义的变革。具体来说，我们发现农民无法获得负担得起的服务。这就要求在形成初期将价值链概念整合到多层次的IP中，以使各个层次的相关参与者参与进来，以激发农场级别以外的多种干预措施。

意义

在组织一级需要进行更改以促进资源的重新配置和职责的下放，以支持创新过程。权力动态的存在和有利于现状的制度环境是建立和评估有效的多层次IP以实现包容性价值链创新时需要考虑的关键问题。