Publications

The aim of this study is to understand the local innovation processes in South Tyrol and specifically to try to understand the constraints and opportunities for the Learning and Innovation Network for Sustainable Agriculture (LINSA), a highly sophisticated and adaptive network comprising the various stakeholders involved in apple production and marketing in the region. The last 50 years of the LINSA’s history are scrutinized, highlighting the enabling environment, the support provided by the Agriculture Knowledge and Information System (AKIS), as well as the drivers and triggers for innovation.

The FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean has been working in support of family farming with its member countries, forming a network of experts with over a hundred participants from 33 countries in the region. This book systematizes experiences and lessons to contribute to the dialogue and formulation of public policies to address the challenges faced by family farmers, highlighting experiences and projects that strengthened the management of their organizations, the sustainable intensification of production and the access to markets and value chains.

In 2010, a study was carried out to assist the Research and Extension Branch in FAO to position itself strategically in meeting needs and demands that arise as a consequence of climate change. The goal of the study was also to assist other global and national agencies meet these needs. The results of the study formed the basis for the report “Facing the challenges of climate change and food security: the role of research, extension and communication institutions”.

This series was developed to help extension workers provide support to farmers in dealing with the new challenges that arise from market-oriented farming. The aim is to contribute to building their capacity and skills in farm management and through them, the capacity and skills of the farmers with whom they work. The intention is to help farmers understand why they make the choices they make and how they can improve their decision making skills.

This guide has been prepared for agricultural extension workers to introduce them to some of the principles of economics that are relevant to smallholder farming and in particular market-oriented farming. The reader will gain a basic understanding of some of the terms and concepts used in economics and relate them to the day-to-day decisions that farmers make. The aim of this guide is to build skills that will enable extension workers to assist farmers make the kinds of farm management decisions that lead to greater farm profitability.

This guide is intended to help extension workers better understand the concept of risk, the situations where risk occurs and management strategies that can be used to reduce, or at least soften its effect. It is hoped that the guide will be useful in assisting extension workers to provide farmers with advice on the kind of risk management strategies that they can employ to deal with risk in their day-to-day farming operations.

This guide has been prepared to provide a better understanding of benchmarking in farm management extension. It explains clearly what benchmarking is, discusses what to benchmark, suggests a series of steps which may be followed and shows ways to apply these to the process in the field. It introduces the concepts of profitability and efficiency as indicators of farm business performance, examines those indicators and applies them to work in the field. The guide explains also some diagnostic techniques that can be of use to identify problems of the farm business and resulting cause and effect relationships.