agricultural knowledge and innovation system course material

1. Chapter one: An Introduction to Innovation and System
Thinking
Chapter objectives
 At the end of this chapter you should be able to:-
 Define innovation
 Explain the innovation approaches
 Explain the concept of system thinking
 List and discuss the types and properties of system
 Differentiate different scientific paradigms of knowledge

2. 1.1. The meaning of innovation
• An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new
by an individual or an organization.
• If the idea seems new to the individual, it is an innovation.
1.2. Innovation approaches
 National agricultural research system(NARS-)
 The system assumes that agricultural knowledge originates from a
known source and flows to an end user (the farmer).
• It is linear and unchanging.

3. NARS cntd…
Extension is seen
as knowledge and
information
disseminator,
worker in the field,
and advisor of
farmers.
Farmers were
considered as largely
passive, illiterate,
ignorant, and unable to
innovate agricultural
practices
Researchers were
considered
professionals,
more generic and
comfortably
experimenting under
controlled conditions
on research stations.
Linear model of technology development

4. Agricultural knowledge and information system
Agricultural knowledge and information system(AKIS)
it recognizes a link between researcher, extension and end users.
 However, AKIS is limited in its consideration of the heterogeneity
among agents, the institutional contexts that condition agents’
behavior

5. Contd…
 Agricultural knowledge and innovation system(AKIS)
• It is a network of different actors (organizations, farmers, policy-
makers, extension agents, input agencies, marketing agencies,
etc...) that are involved in the generation, transformation,
dissemination, exchange, utilization, storage and retrieval of
knowledge & information.
• The innovation systems approach broadens the NARS and AKIS
perspectives by focusing on the diverse agents of innovation

6. Agricultural innovation system contd…

7. Why Is Innovation Systems Thinking Needed Now?
 AKIS needed because of the following reasons
• To recognize specific situations
• To get clear picture of knowledge producers and users
• To design appropriate development strategy
• Markets, not production, increasingly drive agricultural
development.
• The production, trade, and consumption environment for agriculture
is growing more dynamic.
• Exponential growth in ICT.

8. 1.3. The Concept of system
• The term "System" is derived from the Greek word systema.
• It means an organized relationship among functioning units or
components.
• We can define a System as a combination of resources or functional
units working together to accomplish a given task.
• The term "working together" in system definition is all the
components are interrelated and interdependent and it cannot exist
independently.
• As the definition says, these components interact with each other to
accomplish a given task.

9. 1.4. Properties of a system
1. Holism: system works based on the assumption that the world
can be viewed as consisting of structural wholes.
 The structural wholes working together exhibit certain emergent
properties emerging from their wholes.
eg. Life is the emergent property of human body system
salt is the emergent property of chlorine and sodium
2. Transformations – Inputs to a system are transformed to an
output through major functions.
3. Control – systems have the capacity to maintain key components
in the face of external disturbance.
4. Communication– system has an ability to communicate
information among components.

10. Properties of a system contd…
5.Orientation towards the objective: The subsystems are oriented
towards the common objective of the system.
6. Interdependence: The subsystems cannot exist in isolation.
7. Boundary- it defines the limits in which system components and
their interactions are studied.
The system is inside the boundary, and the area outside the
boundary is called the environment.

11. 1.5. Types of Systems
• There is no universally accepted classification. For simplicity system
can be classified into three broad families.
 Natural systems – are those systems that exist in nature. They exist
independent of humankind.
 Social systems. Social systems involve relationships between animate
populations not between things.
• It is a deliberate mental construct that people create through debate,
negotiation and consensus to solve problems .
 Artificial systems: it does not exist in nature.
• They are human creations
• They are constructed from either or both of two kinds of elements i.e.
from natural and social systems. E.g. dairy cooperatives

12. Other classifications
 Systems within the three broad divisions can be further classified
• Static or dynamic depending on whether or not they change over time
in response to internal or external influences.
• Open or closed depending on whether or not they interact with their
environment.
• Abstract or concrete depending on whether or not they are conceptual
or physical in nature. Abstract e.g. AKIS
• Natural and manufactured systems:
• Adaptive and non-adaptive systems:
• Deterministic and probabilistic systems:

13. 1.6. SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM
 Scientific Paradigms: It is a scientific approach based on certain
line of epistemology aiming at providing tools for looking at social
problems.
 Positivism-realism (Conventional paradigm)
 Basic Arguments
• There is one objective truth
• Persons who think differently are incorrect
• The choice for experts is to convince or ignore others
• there is a real world
• There is a real world that exists independently of our perceptions,
theories, and constructions

14. Contd…
• Realism holds that there are properties that can be applied to many
things, rather than denoting a single specific individual.
• According to realists, these properties, so called universals, really
exist.
 Constructivism (New Paradigm)
• Theories/knowledge about the world are constructed by us in a
creative process.
• There is no mind-independent world
• There are multiple ‘life worlds’ towards which experts have to work
to satisfy the interests of these life worlds of social actors.
• Constructivists believe that social problems can be solved through
entertaining the views of individual actors.

15. Relativism
 Social realities that are constructed at one moment in time would
be deconstructed at the other time.
• because social actors in the system will continue to change their
strategies to react to externalities (e.g, government policies and
regulations).