At this week’s (27-30 October 2014) 6th All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture (AACAA) in Nairobi, Kenya, Jo Cadilhon an agricultural economist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI ) presented a paper on Field testing a conceptual framework for innovation platform impact assessment: the case of MilkIT dairy platforms in Tanga Region, Tanzania (by Pham Ngoc Diep , Jean-Joseph Cadilhon and Brigitte Maass).

The paper, presented on 27 October 2014, showcased a research that studied the impact of innovation platforms in Tanga, Tanzania, set up by the MilkIT dairy development project to intensify smallholder production through feeds enhancement and value chain approaches. This research was designed to test a conceptual framework developed by Cadilhon (2013) to evaluate impacts of innovation platforms.

The results of the research indicate significant impacts of communication frequency and quality, as well as impacts of exposure to different sources of information on livestock keepers’ perceptions of feed availability and accessibility. The results also point to the significant roles of education, production scale and practices on the two performance indicators studied.

These findings confirm that platform facilitators’ investments in fostering communication between platform members are worthwhile because this communication has a positive impact on helping platform members reach their goals. However, findings also show that individual situations described by the characteristics of members and their production system still play a role in reaching stated productivity goals. Thus, innovation platform facilitators should set up mechanisms that allow innovation processes that are compatible with the needs of individuals in the platform.