19 pages., via online journal., There are about 500 million small-scale farms in low-income countries on the planet. Farmers have been slow to adopt a threefold set of sustainable agronomic practices known as “conservation agriculture” (CA) that have been shown to double productivity. Our study of a novel CA project in Nicaragua, organized based on principles that counter convention, may point to improved ways of understanding and managing sustainable innovations in low-income countries. In particular, by connecting core ideas from the innovation literature to the literature that explores the role of intermediaries such as NGOs, our case study suggests that the efficacy of NGOs to facilitate the adoption of sustainable innovations by small-scale farmers in these settings may be enhanced if NGOs employ non-centrist approaches in order to address the critical uncertainties associated with such innovations. We discuss how our findings contradict some of long-standing arguments in the literature, and their implications for theory and practice.
Chambers, Robert (author), Ghildyal, B.P. (author), and Chambers: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK; Ghildyal: ford Foundation, New Delhi, India
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1985
Published:
UK
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 94 Document Number: C07298
Alonge, Adewale J. (author / Department of Agricultural Education and Studies, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011)
Format:
Report
Publication Date:
1994
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 97 Document Number: C07940
Notes:
abstracted from Ph.D. thesis, 1993; search through volume, In: Jacquelyn Deeds and Demetria Ford, eds. Summary of Research in Extension (1992-1993). Mississippi State, MS: Department of Agricultural Education and Experimental Statistics, Mississippi State University, July 1994. p. 114
Buccola, J.T. (author), Orden, D. (author), and University of Minnesota, Dept. of Agricultural and Applied Economics.; University of Minnesota, Dept. of Agricultural and Applied Economics.
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1980
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 52 Document Number: C00632
Findlay, Henry J. (author), Morris, Carlton E. (author), Oben, Mercy (author), Zabawa, Robert (author), and Vocational and Extension Education, Tuskegee University, Alabama
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1993
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 93 Document Number: C06984
