Innovation for Agricultural Research and Development

Agriculture is an urgent global priority andfarmers find themselves in the front line ofsome of the advance_book_informationworld’s most pressing issues – climate change, globalization and food security.Twenty years ago, the Farmer First workshopheld at the Institute of Development Studies,University of Sussex, UK, launched a movement to encourage farmer participation in agriculturalresearch and development (R&D), responding to farmers’ needs in complex, diverse, risk-proneenvironments, and promoting sustainable livelihoods and agriculture.Since that time, methodological, institutional and policy experiments have unfolded aroundthe world. Farmer First Revisited returns to the debates about farmer participation inagricultural R&D and looks to the future. With over 60 contributions from across the world,the book presents a range of experiences that highlight the importance of going beyonda focus on the farm to the wider innovation system, including market interactions as well asthe wider institutional and policy environment. If, however, farmers are really to be put first, apolitics of demand is required in order to shape the direction of these innovation systems.

File: Farmer_First-FFR-Advance_Book_Information-Jan_09.pdf