Three projects on innovative farmers’ cooperatives, best farming practices in hilly areas and better marketing of milk were winners at recent awards for Innovation Platforms (IP) Case Study Competitions held in Kampala. Continue reading
The ‘innovation platforms approach’ is an effective way of establishing systematic interactions among stakeholders in the agricultural sector by stimulating technical, institutional and organizational innovations in agricultural value chains. Researchers from the University of Bonn, Germany, ILRI and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), tested the effectiveness of a dairy innovation platform that is trying to improve farmers’ access to cattle feeds in Tanzania. Continue reading
Scaling out research results for wider application and use is a goal of every research for development project in today’s CGIAR. It is also one of the most difficult things to achieve. Scaling out was on the agenda of recent end-of-project workshops of the IFAD-financed MilkIT project. At a recent workshop team members and partners listed out some of the critical success factors such a project needs to be able to scale out its results. Continue reading
Speaking exclusively to the “Daily News on Saturday”, the Tanzania Milk Processors Association Executive Secretary, Mr Edmond Mariki, said that innovation platforms used in the three-year MilkIT project that enhanced dairy-based livelihoods in India and Tanzania through feed innovation and value chain development approaches is something they welcome. Continue reading
Jo Cadilhon an agricultural economist at 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’ at this week’s (27-30 October 2014) 6th All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture in Nairobi, Kenya. Continue reading
Groundnuts (photo on Flickr by Stephen Eustace). Jerome Bossuet, of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), based in Pantancheru, India, has an interesting article in the New Agriculturist last month about fodder innovations helping Indian dairy farmers. Feed matters are big matters in this intensive dairy-producing country, because ‘Feed represents around 70 … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 