 So, session 2 from Technology Transfer to Agricultural Innovation Systems. Its objectives are to introduce the agricultural innovation system and cover its main features. Some of it was covered by Bernie this morning already. And look at an overview at the various participatory tools that one should look at. So, the Technology Transfer approach looked at a linear approach, where on the one hand you had experts who produced knowledge and then they worked on how to transfer that knowledge to its end users. It assumes that by taking expert knowledge and pushing it down the chain at end users, one can get good adoption and increased productivity. So essentially this is how it looked. It starts at one end with the researchers, it goes to the extension system, to the farmers, from the farmers to the marketers and from the marketers to the consumers. That's how the farming system approach looked like under a linear Technology Transfer approach. The emphasis here is on developing the capacity of research through investment in scientific infrastructure and human capital. And research is not linked to technology users or other sources or other actors in the sector. Does anyone recognize this slide? Because we went over it this morning. So it basically looks how from the 1960 we started with the Technology Transfer, the famous Green Revolution and so on, moved into a farming systems analysis and FSR approach, then in the 90s to Agricultural Knowledge and Information System, and finally in this century the Agricultural Innovation System. So the approach in each case was covered, I won't repeat it because Bernie went over it this morning, but you clearly see the main headings in terms of the approach. And then for each approach there is a distinct role for farmers, role for research and researchers, and what are its intended outcomes, key intervention areas, and what weaknesses do they have. So it's the same clerks et al study from 2012 that mapped this typology. Then it moves from the approaches throughout the year until we get to where we are today and today we speak of agricultural innovation systems. And here is one depiction of how the innovation system can look like. It's composed of primary actors, so those would be our farmers, traders and so on, into the full value chain from processors, wholesaler, retailer and all the way to the consumer. But it also depicts that you have the macroeconomic conditions, so your weather, climate, economy, as well as you have the enabling environment, so your government laws, policies, and the context in which it supports, the support systems and so on. We talked this morning quite in depth about how the Agricultural Innovation System is a really complex phenomenon, a complex system. Part of that is looking at identifying what would be the right entry points for innovation to address those complex problems. So for example, you would not go in and say, I want to tackle problems in agricultural. In general, you would go in and say, I want to try to try how can I remove striker weeds in maize, or how can I look at crop protection, looking at specific points of entries in order to address that. So we start with a current situation, remember this morning's role-play. We're looking at from international to national to subnational, remember the levels, and the various actors that are involved. Together, we bring them through this fennel of this change and innovation action to bring us closer to the desired solution. In your case, ecotourism would sustain rubber in our idyllic township. The Agricultural Innovation System closes the loop by bringing that back into the stakeholders and the cycle goes on. So it's a much more cyclical approach as opposed to a linear approach. So what are some of the attributes? When we look at the keywords of the linear approach, we hear things like planning, transfer. When we look at the keywords of Agricultural Innovation System, you hear words like participation, empowerment, community. So sometimes just by reading the document or listening to the policy, you can actually see in which ideology it is nested. The same thing in terms of the decision-making. The decision-making in the linear was much more centralized. A decision was taken, this technology was developed, and now it will be rolled out. The decision-making in an Agricultural Innovation System is much more decentralized. It's much more participatory, and therefore it will be more active at the local level as well as opposed to being more universal, whether nationally or internationally. The local population would be seen in the linear approach as beneficiaries, which assumes a certain passiveness to it, receiving a particular intervention. Whereas in an Agricultural Innovation System, it is looked at more as partners or actors within the system. So it's quite a different mindset with regards to the approaches, and that comes through in the terminology as well. So what are some of the limitations of the linear approach? What would you say? Yes, please use your mic. For one, it follows the classic transmission model. Yes. It's unidirectional one-way. It's unidirectional one-way direction, one-way communication. What is the limitation with that? Only the voice of the source of technology, for example, is heard. Okay, fine. So we don't get all the voices, the diversity of voices. Anyone else? Well, there are a number of issues. One is oftentimes we fail to actually meet our user's needs. I'm going to break the mold because I don't like just reading slides, so I'm going to tell you a story. So you go to a farmer with this blue sweater, and you give the farmer the blue sweater and say, do you like this sweater? I said, yes, I like this sweater, I'll take it. No problem. And you ask the farmer, would you buy this sweater? I said, no, I would never buy this sweater. What's wrong with it? You just told me a minute ago that you like it. Yeah, you were giving it away for free. If I have to pay for it, it should be black, and it should be from a different material, and it should look differently. So oftentimes when we come with an intervention and we just want to give it away, we're missing a lot of very critical feedback from our partners as to what it is really that they want. And the consequence is that we might be meeting, failing to meet their user needs. We also don't have a focus on continuous learning and innovation process, which leaves the communities incapable of being resilient and grappling with the future changes. And that's important. Why? It's important because the future is uncertain, as we said, and unpredictable. So we might have given someone a solution for something that will not be the problem they need to face in five years' time. But unless we've given them the skill set to deal with that, they'll always be dependent on us. It also doesn't take into account local and indigenous knowledge. It creates very little opportunities for interactions between different sources of knowledge. So innovation is created separately. But this morning when we watched a whiteboard animation, and an hypothesis was made that it's the interconnectedness that spurs innovation, not a single person in this room raised their hand to say they disagree. So there's some inherent faults here with this old system in terms of what it can achieve. Innovation has now become the focus of many development projects. And innovation systems are now put in the center of many development projects. That could be a good thing if you agree with what's being said here. But it can also be a dangerous thing. It can also be a dangerous thing when you believe in this that this is good in its own sector. This doesn't become a means to an end but a goal in and of itself. We have to always remain very critical about all of these things and see whether they're really helping us achieve what we set out to achieve. The other thing with the technology transfer approach is that it assumed that farmers did not know anything. So I've developed a brand new technology and now farmers need to adopt it. And if farmers are not adopting it, it's because they haven't understood it well enough. So we have to explain it again. It's very hard sometimes for researchers to accept that the reason people don't adopt their practices is because their practices aren't so good and that people actually know best what's right for their context. But this is something that was very prevalent in the technology transfer approach. In fairness, if you don't do the agricultural innovation system approach well, you can very quickly find yourself in the same pitfalls. So if I come to you and I decided what the solution should be but then we have a nice discussion about it but then at the end it has to come to that conclusion that might be more participatory but it doesn't change the fundamentals. But maybe the salient feature is that today the researcher and the extension workers are learning first from the farmers before coming up with findings and recommendations. So the needs-based identification is a very key part of this system. As well, and that's associated with that, it used to be that a lot of the research was done on research stations. That's where research gets done. Today more and more research is being done and tested at the farm and with the farmers. And that's very important because the conditions that you get in a research station might never be exactly like they are in the various locations where farmers actually work. So it's more systematic, it's more interactive and more emphasis is placed on the interactions between the various stakeholders. So a lot has been said and you'll hear more on that the more you get involved with the system is capacity to innovate. It's something that gets said a lot but it's not that easy to define. How would you define capacity to innovate? Would somebody like to venture a definition or an explanation? If you went on a capacity to innovate training workshop what would you expect the subject matter to be? Not that easy to define. And yet a lot of the system is anchored around capacity to innovate. So it's important to think about what that actually means. And often what the literature tells us is that capacity to innovate is the capacity to adapt to the different constraints and challenges which are faced and to autonomously come up with solutions that would help overcome that. But of course that can look very differently depending on the context of where you live, the sector of where you work and so on. Potentially in the agricultural innovation system all the actors in both the public and private sectors are involved throughout the chain. So in creating, diffusing, adapting and using all types of knowledge. So that's a very big change. And often the innovation arises through a dynamic interaction amongst most of the actors. So like you were sitting in your groups earlier, you had the different stakeholders interacting, that's essentially the premise of an agricultural innovation system. Bring the stakeholders together and have these kinds of interactions. And for these interactions to occur they need to be open and draw about the best sources of information wherever they might come from. Not just from a designated source that is designated the best source but really what the group feels is the best source. Okay, let's check if you're awake after lunch. In the linear model of agricultural extension, agricultural leader research through technology transfer leads to technology adoption and increased productivity. What is the name commonly given to this approach? A, B, C or B? Only four replies. Only 14 replies. 17, 18, 20, I'll buy 20. Yes, so this is the technology transfer approach. What role did researchers not have under agricultural knowledge and information systems? Interesting. Yes, so they were not facilitators of learning. Which of the following is not considered a failure of the linear technology transfer approach? A, failure to achieve development impact? B, failure to appreciate local and indigenous knowledge? C, failure to promote a culture of continuous learning and innovation? Or D, failure to scale out new technologies? Yes. The majority of the room got it right. But still there's a big chunk of the room that didn't get it right. Scaling is actually the one thing that the technology transfer approach did very effectively, think of the Green Revolution and so on. The other areas are all areas where we just discussed it falls a bit short on.