Purpose: This study investigated the impact of privatization of advisory services on the quality of the services. Design/methodology/approach: The front- and back-office dimensions of advisory activities were analyzed through interviews with 43 advisers involved in the advisory services provided as part of a cocoa exporter's certification program.…

Purpose: This article explores to what extent a Delphi consensus study can help in designing a framework for assessing agricultural innovation systems (AIS), and this in a perspective of transformation of these systems in a diversity of countries. Approach: First, we reviewed the diversity of existing assessment methodologies in terms of their…

Most agricultural research organizations strive to address societal challenges and contribute to positive societal impacts. Fulfilling this ambition involves embedding a culture of impact in organizational culture, which, in our view, entails three main elements: understanding the role of the research community in contributing to impacts over the…

Over the past decade, renewed societal demands on public research have been structured by various generic issues, while others are specific to the context of developing countries. In the first part of this article, after reviewing those issues, we examine how they reshape the analytical frameworks that structure the understanding of causal…

Over the last decade, societal pressure has increased on public research agencies to provide evidence that their research contributes to achieve development goals. To address this challenge, the French Agricultural Research Center for International Development (Cirad), developed an ex-post impact assessment method based on the impact pathway…

Purpose: To promote sustainable agriculture, various development projects are encouraging farmers around Madagascar's Lake Alaotra to adopt conservation agriculture techniques. This article's objective is to analyze the capacity of a project-funded advisory system to accompany such an innovation and to design and implement an advisory method aimed…

In Northern Costa Rica, agricultural production conditions change very rapidly due to public policies that encourage the exportation of new crops according to the liberalization process imposed by the international context. For many years, farmers' organizations at the local, regional and national levels have taken initiatives to respond to this…