Innovation platforms: a tool to enhance small-scale farmer potential through co-creation

ABSTRACT

This article describes the process and analyses the results of a project in Ethiopia establishing an innovation platform (IP) as a tool for co-creation from an innovation systems perspective. The results are encouraging, suggesting positive effects both on yields, but more importantly on the capacity and role of participants as communicators and agents of change in the community. The IP seems promising in creating new networks and modes of communication. The importance of good facilitation, commitment by all members from the start, and feedback loops driving the process was found to be essential.

KEYWORDS:

• Environment (built and natural) – Agriculture, Climate change, Food security
• Labour and livelihoods – Poverty reduction
• Sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Academy of Finland for the grant to the SOILMAN project, making this work possible. We want to thank our partners from Hawassa University in Ethiopia for organising local contacts and supporting our fieldwork. We also want to thank Aregu Amsalu Aserse who worked to characterise the Rhizobium bacteria and Petri Leinonen from Elomestari who produced the inoculant used for the field studies. Special thanks go to the bright, young students from Hawassa University who joined the project as enumerators to collect the valuable information both in the surveys and as interpreters for focus groups and interviews. Finally, we want to thank the three anonymous reviewers who gave us constructive critique, which helped shape the final version of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mila Sell is Senior Specialist and Research Scientist at the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). She has a long experience in programme development and coordination, teaching, and fieldwork in several African countries, focusing on multidisciplinary research, systems approach and participatory research and extension methods, with a special focus on women empowerment in agriculture. She is finalising a PhD in agricultural economics, combining econometric approaches with her background in folkloristics.

Hilkka Vihinen is a political scientist who specialises in rural and regional development and policy, as well as participatory approaches. She is Professor of Rural Policy at Natural Resources Institute Finland, Luke (formerly Agrifood Research Finland, MTT).

Galfato Gabiso is a farming system researcher in agronomy at Hawassa University and an expert in technology transfer activities. He holds an MSc in plant sciences, with a specialisation in agroforestry, from Hawasa University and is currently involved in several international research programmes.

Kristina Lindström is Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her special interest is sustainable food production and consumption. She has worked on diverse aspects of biological nitrogen fixation and rhizobia for decades, especially in collaborations with European, Chinese and African colleagues. For the last 10 years, she also worked in Ethiopia, mapping biodiversity of rhizobia, inoculant testing and inoculation practice.

ORCID

Mila Sell http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0209-5851

Kristina Lindström http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9499-1797

Notes

1 In this context, Hounkonnou et al. (2016) define a domain as “a potential system of interest and action among professional and political actors who have a stake in the domain”, rather than defining the domain as referring to a homogenous group of, for example, farmers with similar challenges and requirements.

2 Enset is also referred to as false banana, as it resembles a banana plant without fruits. The root is used for food consumption through a complicated process including fermenting parts of it underground for several weeks. It is then dried and ground into kocho, which is one of the staple foods in the region.

3 The SOILMAN project also included a field trial testing the biological effect of the technology in collaboration with the national research centre, as well as supporting several Ethiopian doctoral students.

4 The field trial set up with Hawassa research institute showed the project’s rhizobial strains were very effective in comparison both to locally produced inoculants and to chemical fertilisers (results forthcoming).

5 Of the respondents of the endline survey who had been part of the IP, 14 were men and six women. All reported gaining a new role in the community through sharing experiences with others, becoming model farmers, or achieving new acceptance by the community.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland [grant number 266563].