Humidtropics uses Innovation Platforms (IPs) as one approach to achieve its agricultural research for development (R4D) objectives. IPs aim for innovations that can respond to site-specific constraints, through a process of participatory decision-making in which a variety of stakeholders collaborate. Stakeholders involved in the process are farmers, scientists and representatives from public and private sector. This far, IPs mostly concentrate on initiating the multi-stakeholder process, agreeing upon entry points for innovation and Natural Resource Management (NRM) experiments. Much less … [Read more...]
Integrated Systems Research is Changing Lives and Landscapes in Ethiopia
For many years, Teklu Erkossa, a Humidtropics Researcher from IWMI, has been doing research on land and water resources in Ethiopia, a country where agricultural productivity is suffering from water scarcity and land degradation. "In addition, the soils often have quite particular water-related characteristics that are unsuitable for many traditional crops. As a result, we have been exploring alternative cropping options to restore and preserve highly degraded areas in the country. Our platform-driven research project has demonstrated that using Innovation Platform approaches is an … [Read more...]
Defining Ongoing R4D Priorities in Nicaragua
Humidtropics has been working closely with national partners from the Research for Development (R4D) Platform of the Program's Nicanorte Action Site in Central America and the Caribbean. As the Territorial Learning Alliances continue strengthening their collective learning and innovation spaces while expanding the reach of R4D projects in the region, local partners met with the Humidtropics team to discuss completed and ongoing research activities, as well as further defining the national R4D Platform's role in the territories to achieve Humidtropics' R4D goals in Nicaragua. Taking … [Read more...]