Laurens Klerkx

The field of research on agricultural and rural extension and education, also referred to as advisory services and intermediaries, has always engaged with different aspects of the spaces in which agricultural producers (farmers, growers, ranchers) are situated and operate. In this editorial, I will reflect on the elements and environments which jointly constitute and shape the farm  and their connection with extension and advisory services in the digital age, opening up new digital and virtual spaces. Extension and advisory services receive ample consideration in current debates on digitalization and digital transformation of the agrifood sector, and are an important focus of attention for agriculture and food systems research, practice and policy . In this editorial, I will elaborate on some digital and virtual spaces as sites of extension and advisory services research, to progress the field of study for which The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension serves as a publication outlet.

Existing research suggests that regions can develop their long-term competitive advantage through well-functioning interregional innovation cooperation. In this article, we use the example of innovation in small and medium-sized agri-food enterprises (SMEs) to scrutinise and compare regional innovation approaches on each side of the Dutch-German border and explore how they can converge into a cross-border innovation space. Particular attention is paid to the role of academic institutions and innovation brokers in creating a common innovation space. We explore how differences between two cross-border regions can be harnessed to enhance the impact of innovation, and how this may lead to what we describe as hybridisation effects. In the empirical analysis, we apply the concept of hybridisation to a cross-border innovation space, something that, as far as we are aware, has not been done before. We empirically ground the concepts of a cross-border innovation space and hybridisation and illustrate how relative regional strengths can lead to hybridisation effects. We conclude that differences in economic structures, institutional set-ups, visions and identities inherent in cross-border spaces are not only hindrances, but also opportunities, and we highlight the importance of these complementary strengths and the potential for their strategic use by regional innovation actors. Our findings are highly relevant for the further development of the Interreg Europe programme and the implementation of the EU’s Territorial Agenda 2030.

While agency has received considerable attention in recent sustainability transitions studies, as well as in the literature on socio-ecological systems and sustainability transformations, the focus has been on the agency of humans. Given the emphasis on infrastructures and material culture in sustainability transitions studies, it is surprising that non-human agency has not received more attention. This paper aims to add to the body of work on agency and actor-oriented approaches in sustainability transitions, and addresses this gap by investigating the role of non-human agency in shaping sustainability transitions. Through an application of Actor-Network Theory, we followed the Bagrada hilaris pest, and analyzed the roles performed by the Bagrada as a so-called actant within a network of humans, as part of a transition-in-the-making towards more sustainable food systems. The Bagrada has been a key actant in provoking changes towards sustainable pest management in Chile, destabilizing regime practices associated with pesticides, and creating and mediating relationships between different human actors. In terms of transition theories, particularly the multi-level perspective, this case illustrates the relational nature of agency. The main theoretical implications are that: a) actants from all levels (niche, regime, landscape) are linked in networks of relations that make change happen; b) the landscape level is not void of agency; c) boundaries between levels are fluid. We conclude that relating to non-human actants and understanding how to mobilize them for normative goals can help catalyze sustainability transitions.

Agricultural innovation systems has become a popular approach to understand and facilitate agricultural innovation. However, there is often no explicit reflection on the role of agricultural innovation systems in food systems transformation and how they relate to transformative concepts and visions (e.g. agroecology, digital agriculture, Agriculture 4.0, AgTech and FoodTech, vertical agriculture, protein transitions). To support such reflection we elaborate on the importance of a mission-oriented perspective on agricultural innovation systems. We review pertinent literature from innovation, transition and policy sciences, and argue that a mission-oriented agricultural innovation systems (MAIS) approach can help understand how agricultural innovation systems at different geographical scales develop to enable food systems transformation, in terms of forces, catalysts, and barriers in transformative food systems change. Focus points can be in the mapping of missions and submissions of MAIS within and across countries, or understanding the drivers, networks, governance, theories of change, evolution and impacts of MAIS. Future work is needed on further conceptual and empirical development of MAIS and its connections with existing food systems transformation frameworks. Also, we argue that agricultural systems scholars and practitioners need to reflect on how the technologies and concepts they work on relate to MAIS, how these represent a particular directionality in innovation, and whether these also may support ex-novation.

The effect of proximity to markets on dairy farming intensity and market participation traditionally has been viewed as a market quality effect stemming from distance to end-markets with resultant travel time. This study departs from this by distinguishing three travel time components: travel time to local service center for inputs and services, to dairy delivery point, and to end-markets. Dairy farms in nine villages each in Ethiopia and Kenya were sampled and interviewed along a double proximity gradient. Effects on many production and marketing parameters were measured and compared using regression analysis, to test the hypothesis that intensity of dairy farming and degree of market participation increase with proximity to end-markets and with proximity to local service centers. Findings prove the hypothesis for proximity to local service center, which causes better market quality for inputs and outputs, smaller farms with less available labor, use of more purchased feeds and services, higher stocking rates, higher yields, and higher margins per hectare. Findings only partly prove the hypothesis for proximity to end-markets, mainly due to unexpected land scarcity in the most remote locations. Low productivity and low dairy farming intensity and market participation for remote farms in Ethiopia are attributed to limited and volatile market demand, a coarse milk-collection grid, and low quality of input and service markets, which are largely publicly organized. Implication of this study is that the common typology of dairy farms in '(peri-) urban' and 'rural' farms needs adjustment by outlining local market access and connectivity. 'Remote' rural farms need to be connected to milk collection infrastructure, input shops and services to even have the choice to increase participation in dairy-or other markets.

Innovation platforms (IPs) that support agricultural innovation to enable transition processes towards more sustainable agriculture provide a space where conflicts of interest among actors in the existing agricultural system (the so called incumbent regime) may play out. Sometimes these conflicts over how actors will benefit from an action are not revealed until actors are brought together. However, a barrier to change occurs when IP actors use their existing power to mobilise resources to influence if and how individual and collective interests are aligned. In the context of agricultural innovation and transitions, this paper uses the power in transitions framework (Avelino and Wittmayer, 2016), along with analytical perspectives on conflicts and role perceptions, to understand how consciously staging or revealing conflicts of interest among IP actors changed role perceptions and power relations among these actors. The paper explores this topic in two IPs addressing agricultural production and sustainability challenges in New Zealand's agricultural sector. Conflicts were staged in IPs when one group of actors mobilised resources that enabled them to move existing power relations from one-sided, to synergistic or a mutual dependency. This enabled conflicts to be acknowledged and solved. In contrast, conflicts were not staged when actors mobilised resources to maintain antagonostic power relations. Our cases demon-trate that staging conflicts to change actors' role perceptions is an important intermediary step to forming new power relations in the agricultural system. Our findings highlight the need for IP theory to conceptualise power relations in IPs as context specific, dynamic and a force shaping outcomes, rather than solely a force exerted by actors in the incumbent regime over IP actors.

In order for science to develop and also stay abreast of developments in both the natural and social world, it is important that scientific disciplines regularly assess and renew their research agenda. Also in the field of study of agricultural education and extension, now seen to comprise pluralistic systems of education and advisory service providers in which support to learning and advice for making operational and strategic decisions is provided through multiple modalities (Birner et al. 2009; Klerkx and Jansen 2010; Knierim et al. 2017; Nettle et al. 2017), regularly updating the research agenda is of key importance. The latest comprehensive research agenda in the Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension was published in 2012 (Faure, Desjeux, and Gasselin 2012), and since then there have been quite some developments in terms of biophysical, ecological, climatological, social, political and economic trends that impact farming and the transformation of agriculture and food systems at large as well as new potentially disruptive technologies. These may also have an impact on education and advisory systems. Thus, when I was asked to provide the opening keynote address at the 24th European Seminar on Extension and Education (ESEE 2019) held at Acireale, Italy, this seemed a pertinent topic to reflect on and offer some ideas on what would be the questions that should form part of a new research agenda for agricultural education and extension studies. This editorial elaborates on that presentation, with the purpose of sharing the reflections presented as well as the suggested questions for future research. The proposed research agenda focuses on advisory services rather than formal agricultural education (at technical,vocational and university levels), but obviously there are links between the two.

There is a growing consensus that one of the key priorities to address food and nutrition security is to aim at the transformation of agriculture and food systems. The private sector can fulfil an important role in this. It is often argued that the success at low income markets (denoted here as Bottom of the Pyramid - BOP) requires innovative and inclusive business models. However, research findings on this have been quite descriptive and generic. The literature on private sector engagement and food and nutrition security has a strong focus on the participation of businesses in the value chain and the food system, but does generally not unravel the specific characteristics of the inclusive business model itself. This article aims to contribute to an improved understanding with regard to inclusive business model characteristics of private sector interventions aiming at food and nutrition security improvements, by scrutinizing 16 cases from Africa, Asia and Latin America. The study
focuses on the internal fitness of the strategic business model by analysing the foundation level components of the inclusive business model. Important findings are the relevance of quality of product or service besides its affordability, marketing and distribution strategies to link the different actors in the value chain, and training as well as coalition building to overcome institutional and cultural gaps and increase the success of the inclusive business model for improved nutrition and food security. An important conclusion is that the business model and business ecosystem of BOP markets is crucial. Also, the findings indicate a need for intermediaries to overcome cultural and institutional gaps in implementing inclusive business models.

Ecological intensification has been proposed as a promising lever for a transition towards more sustainable food systems. Various food systems exist that are based on ecological intensification and may have potential for a sustainability transition. Little is known, however, about their diversity and about how they perform against dominant systems in terms of the multiple societal goals. The aim of this study is to contribute to knowledge about sustainability transitions in food systems through an empirical analysis of vegetable food systems in Chile. The study (i) characterizes the diversity of vegetable food systems in Chile (ii) evaluates the food systems in terms of multiple societal goals, and (iii) assesses their potential for supporting sustainability transition pathways from the perspective of ecological intensification. Results indicate that among the five vegetable food system types, the agroecological and the small organic have potential to foster a sustainability transition. Nevertheless, these systems are small and localized, and scaling them requires actions to remove barriers in the relations with the agri-food regime and among themselves. The broader relevance of this analysis is that there needs to be awareness in research on transitions about the diversity of food systems present in countries and how they interact.

Crop and livestock production have become spatially decoupled in existing commercial agricultural regimes throughout the world. These segregated high input production systems contribute to some of the world's most pressing sustainability challenges, including climate change, nutrient imbalances, water pollution, biodiversity decline, and increasingly precarious rural livelihoods. There is substantial evidence that by closing the loop in nutrient and energy cycles, recoupling crop and livestock systems at farm and territorial scales can help reduce the environmental externalities associated with conventional commercial farming without declines in profitability or yields. Yet such "integrated" crop and livestock systems remain rare as a proportion of global agricultural area. Based on an interdisciplinary workshop and additional literature review, we provide a comprehensive historical and international perspective on why integrated crop and livestock systems have declined in most regions and what conditions have fostered their persistence and reemergence in others. We also identify levers for encouraging the reemergence of integrated crop and livestock systems worldwide. We conclude that a major disruption of the current regime would be needed to foster crop-livestock reintegration, including a redesign of research programs, credit systems, payments for ecosystem services, insurance programs, and food safety regulations to focus on whole farm outcomes and the creation of a circular economy. An expansion of the number of integrated crop and livestock systems field trials and demonstrations and efforts to brand integrated crop and livestock systems as a form of sustainable agriculture through the development of eco-labels could also improve adoption, but would likely be unsuccessful at encouraging wide-scale change without a more radical transformation of the research and policy landscape.

A common avenue to enable adoption of technologies and practices by small-scale producers is by means of farmer clusters. These are achieved by building networks and partnerships between farmers and other actors within the supply chain. This paper examines the role that farmer clusters play in the adoption of practices and technologies by shrimp farmers in Vietnam. Understanding the decisions that lead to adoption is important because these have a key impact on sustainable land use in aquaculture. We report on two complementary studies that test the role of farmer clusters in accessing different sources of knowledge and the trust associated with each of the knowledge sources. First, a survey (N = 193) tested the relationship between cluster membership and adoption, and showed that shrimp farmers who are members of farmer clusters are more likely to adopt three types of pond management practices (i.e. water quality management, feed input, and disease control practices). Furthermore, frequency of interaction with, and trust related to, key stakeholder actors could partly explain this relationship. Second, focus group discussions further zoomed into the dynamics that underlie the adoption of technologies and practices by cluster farmers and non-cluster farmers, respectively. We found that input retailers, buyers and hatcheries were only valued for their input on specific products and issues, but not trusted, as the information always needed being verified through testing by, amongst others, neighbors. Consequently, trust relations with these actors can be described as strongly calculative. Farmer clusters increase trust and tighten relationships between members. As a result, members trust each other when verifying information or sharing knowledge acquired from less trusted sources. On the basis of these results, we argue that reliance on existing farmer networks (i.e. clusters) is a viable tool to improve adoption of sustainable technologies and achieve land use planning objectives. Further implications for research and policy are discussed.

Agriculture 4.0 is comprised of different already operational or developing technologies such as robotics, na-notechnology, synthetic protein, cellular agriculture, gene editing technology, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and machine learning, which may have pervasive effects on future agriculture and food systems and major transformative potential. These technologies underpin concepts such as vertical farming and food systems, digital agriculture, bioeconomy, circular agriculture, and aquaponics. In this perspective paper, we argue that more attention is needed for the inclusion and exclusion effects of Agriculture 4.0 technologies, and for reflection on how they relate to diverse transition pathways towards sustainable agricultural and food systems driven by mission-oriented innovation systems. This would require processes of responsible innovation, anticipating the potential impacts of Agriculture 4.0 through inclusive processes, and reflecting on and being responsive to emerging effects and where needed adjusting the direction and course of transition pathways.

Growing empirical evidence suggests that innovation platforms can be effective in enhancing agricultural research impact by creating an enabling environment for scaling of innovations such as novel technologies, practices and busines models. However, efforts to understand how these innovation platforms operate to scale innovations are insufficient. Such knowledge is critical for improving the design of agricultural innovation systems, specifically within the context of a rising interest in the innovation platform approach to support the transformation of agriculture across Africa. This paper investigates the scaling approaches employed by innovation platforms established in Rwanda. The study focused on four innovation platforms created as part of the Sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Program and analysed their activities and the resulting scaling outcomes. The findings show that two approaches can be effectively combined during the intervention; (1) the innovation process that resembles a traditional, linear approach of finding short-term solutions to specific problems (push approach) and (2) the network building process where platforms employed multi-level, transdisciplinary processes (pull approach). In two areas, the platform activities appeared to have contributed to increased revenues of farmers. The alignment of the innovation platform activities with political agendas or broadly, the extent to which the scaling strategy considers the existing conducive context is shown to play a critical role in the scaling process. The study shows that a balanced combination of both push and pull approaches and a strategic linkage between the platform activities and external development-government policies and interventions-are critical for a productive agricultural transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings also indicate that the scaling processes require a "protected space" to materialise, and the scaling approach needs flexibility to accommodate the complexity of each innovation.

While there is a lot of literature from a natural or technical sciences perspective on different forms of digitalization in agriculture (big data, internet of things, augmented reality, robotics, sensors, 3D printing, system integration, ubiquitous connectivity, artificial intelligence, digital twins, and blockchain among others), social science researchers have recently started investigating different aspects of digital agriculture in relation to farm production systems, value chains and food systems. This has led to a burgeoning but scattered social science body of literature. There is hence lack of overview of how this field of study is developing, and what are established, emerging, and new themes and topics. This is where this article aims to make a contribution, beyond introducing this special issue which presents seventeen articles dealing with social, economic and institutional dynamics of precision farming, digital agriculture, smart farming or agriculture 4.0. An exploratory literature review shows that five thematic clusters of extant social science literature on digitalization in agriculture can be identified: 1) Adoption, uses and adaptation of digital technologies on farm; 2) Effects of digitalization on farmer identity, farmer skills, and farm work; 3) Power, ownership, privacy and ethics in digitalizing agricultural production systems and value chains; 4) Digitalization and agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS); and 5) Economics and management of digitalized agricultural production systems and value chains. The main contributions of the special issue articles are mapped against these thematic clusters, revealing new insights on the link between digital agriculture and farm diversity, new economic, business and institutional arrangements both on-farm, in the value chain and food system, and in the innovation system, and emerging ways to ethically govern digital agriculture. Emerging lines of social science enquiry within these thematic clusters are identified and new lines are suggested to create a future research agenda on digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0. Also, four potential new thematic social science clusters are also identified, which so far seem weakly developed: 1) Digital agriculture socio-cyber-physical-ecological systems conceptualizations; 2) Digital agriculture policy processes; 3) Digitally enabled agricultural transition pathways; and 4) Global geography of digital agriculture development. This future research agenda provides ample scope for future interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary science on precision farming, digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0.

On-farm agricultural innovation through incorporation of new technologies and practices requires access to resources such as knowledge, financial resources, training, and even emotional support, all of which require the support of different actors such as peers, advisors, and researchers. The literature has explored the support networks that farmers use and the overall importance ranking of different support actors, but it has not looked in detail at how these networks may differ for different farmers. This study fills this gap by looking at farmer support network configurations through the lens of the social capital available to them in such configurations. Using a Chilean fruit-farmer case, we examine how different types of social capital (bonding, bridging, and linking) are used to achieve what has been called 'ambidexterity'. Ambidexterity implies both that open networks (based on linking and bridging social capital) are used to explore and access new knowledge and resources , and that closed networks (based on bonding social capital) are used to successfully implement and exploit new technologies and practices. Our findings show that farmers use all types of social capital-bonding, bridging, and linking-in their support networks, but that they have different configurations, five in this study. These configurations are based on personal motivations, innovation objectives, and resource endowments. Despite the different network configurations and types of social capital-which may be more balanced or less balanced in light of ambidexterity-farmers may achieve the same ambitions and type of innovations. A main theoretical implication is that the configuration of support networks is thus not a one-size-fits-all where each farmer's ranking of support actors for on-farm innovation is the same. This nuances earlier work and calls for more attention to a better understanding of how each support network configuration responds to a certain logic, and hence cannot be identified as superior or inferior.

Nonpoint source pollution of groundwater by nitrates from agricultural activity is a persistent problem for which developing effective policy approaches has proven difficult. There is little empirical information on forms of governance or regime attributes that effectively and sustainably address agricultural nonpoint source pollution of groundwater. Nebraska's Natural Resource District (NRD) system is a rare example of a groundwater governance regime that is putting programmes in place that are likely to generate sustainable groundwater quality outcomes. We focus on three groundwater nitrate management programmes in the state that collectively represent the broader NRD system. The research shows that four elements of Nebraska's groundwater governance regime are fundamental to its success in addressing groundwater nitrates: 1) the local nature of governance, which builds trust among stakeholders; 2) the significant authority granted to the local districts by the state, allowing for the development of locally tailored solutions; 3) the collaborative governance approach, which allows potential scale imbalances to be overcome; and 4) the taxing authority granted to NRDs, which enables them to fund locally tailored management solutions. We find that these aspects of the NRD system have created conditions that enable adaptive, collaborative governance that positions the state well to address emerging groundwater quality challenges. We present aspects of the governance regime that are generalisable to other American states as efforts to address nitrate pollution in groundwater increase.

Latin America has historically been a vanguard of agroecology. In Nicaragua, an agroecological transition is occurring, with three decades of building a groundswell based on the farmer-to-farmer movement and the recent institutionalization of agroecology in national law. Yet, problems remain with agroe-cology's diffusion. We introduce the Technological Innovation Systems approach to examine systemic barriers to the agroe-cological transition and cycles of blockages caused by barriers' interactions. Based on qualitative data from north-central Nicaragua, we find the main barriers hindering the agroecolo-gical transition include weak guidance of the search for agroe-cology, insufficient capacities and quantities of resources, and lacking market development. Beyond the Nicaragua case, the analysis points at the importance of using socio-technical systems analysis to better understand and address the root causes behind issues blocking national agroecological transitions.

Over the course of just a few years, shrimp farming has become a major aquaculture production system in coastal areas of several developing countries across the globe. However, farmers are facing a variety of risks related to disease, market, and climate, which influence risk management strategies and adoption of new technologies. This paper looks at three practices related to pond management: (1) water quality management to ensure a good environment for shrimp growth; (2) adequate feed input; and (3) disease control practices in order to mitigate the risk of disease outbreak in the pond. We investigated adoption of these three practices in smallholder shrimp farms in the Mekong Delta, by exploring how and whether membership into a producer's cluster influences access to knowledge and perception of risk in the adoption process. The results show that, after controlling for farm characteristics, farm clustering has a positive relationship with the adoption of water quality management, feed inputs, and disease control practices. Results also indicate that increasing interaction frequency with public sector and private sector's actors, as well as the perceived degree of market risk, positively influences the adoption of the three pond management practices under study. Mediation analyses show that being a member of a farmer cluster influences adoption of farming practices via two underlying processes: frequency of interaction with public and private sector's actors, and perception of market risk, both of which ultimately promote the adoption of practices. We conclude that clustering is a promising avenue for fostering interactions between farmers and key supporting actors in aquaculture, and impacts both the formation of specific aqua-related risk perceptions and subsequent practice adoption. As such, clusters-by fostering linkages and facilitating interactions between different knowledge sources-can promote adoption of practices toward sustainable in-tensification. However, to more effectively deploy a cluster approach a key policy and practice implication is to take into consideration local idiosyncrasies defined by their social interactions, risk perception and spatial dimensions in order to better facilitate local linkages between farms (horizontal coordination) and a better integration with the value chain (vertical coordination).

This paper makes a contribution to understanding the impact of relational trust, as embodied within bonding, bridging and linking social capital, on rural innovation. Using cases of multi-stakeholder groups who work together on shared problems it explores how social capital and different forms of trust (companion, competence and commitment) influence rural innovation processes. Looking at both the ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ side of social capital, our focus is on how social capital and trust constrain and enable the process of innovation. The study highlights both positive and negative effects of social capital in the context of three fixed term projects that were part of New Zealand's Primary Innovation programme (2012–2017). Our findings show that there was a unique composition of social capital and trust at the outset of each project and that dark social capital was a critical constraint in each case. Enabling innovation processes required committed and dedicated brokers who provided bridging social capital and embodied competence trust to enable participants' confidence. Such brokers are capable of recognising and managing different ‘shades’ of social capital and trust in pursuing desired project outcomes. A main theoretical implication of this study is that a better understanding of social capital and trust is needed to enable innovation facilitators and project managers to design and undertake fixed term rural innovation projects effectively. This is because social capital determines whether the composition of relationships within networks of actors involved in innovation projects enables innovation, or to the contrary constrains innovation. Specifically the implications and implementation of bridging social capital and competence trust are key determinants of successful innovation processes.

Recently, increasing attention has been paid to intermediaries, actors connecting multiple other actors, in transition processes. Research has highlighted that intermediary actors (e.g. innovation funders, energy agencies, NGOs, membership organisations, or internet discussion forums) operate in many levels to advance transitions. We argue that intermediation, and the need for it, varies during the course of transition. Yet, little explicit insight exists on intermediation in different transition phases. We integrate existing conceptual models on transition dynamics and phases and a typology of transition intermediaries to examine how intermediaries advance transitions in different phases. We illustrate our conceptual insights through examples from car clubs, heat pumps and low-energy housing. We conclude that intermediation is paramount from predevelopment to stabilisation of a transition. Intermediary functions change from supporting experimentation and articulation of needs in pre-development, to the aggregation of knowledge, pooling resources, network building and stronger institutional support and capacity building in acceleration.

This paper addresses the question how public-private partnerships function as systemic innovation policy instruments within agricultural innovation systems. Public-private partnerships are a popular government tool to promote innovations. However, the wide ranging nature of PPPs make it difficult to assess their effects beyond the direct impacts they generate for the partners. This paper broadens the discussion on the evaluation of PPPs beyond the organisational and financial benefits of the actors involved, and assesses their contribution to the functioning of the innovation system itself. In this paper, we utilise an innovation system perspective that focusses on how PPPs influence the dynamic interplay of innovation system functions and how these functions form a set of feedback loops that constitute an 'innovation motor'. We compare the innovation history of four cases that differ in their strategic policy goals, either working on agricultural sustainability, or on the international competitiveness in the Dutch agricultural sector. The results show the strengths and weaknesses of different types of public-private partnerships as systemic instruments and their capability to orchestrate other types of innovation policy instruments.

Intermediary actors have been proposed as key catalysts that speed up change towards more sustainable socio-technical systems. Research on this topic has gradually gained traction since 2009, but has been complicated by the inconsistency regarding what intermediaries are in the context of such transitions and which activities they focus on, or should focus on. We briefly elaborate on the conceptual foundations of the studies of intermediaries in transitions, and how intermediaries have been connected to different transition theories. This shows the divergence – and sometimes a lack – of conceptual foundations in this research. In terms of transitions theories, many studies connect to the multi-level perspective and strategic niche management, while intermediaries in technological innovation systems and transition management have been much less explored. We aim to bring more clarity to the topic of intermediaries in transitions by providing a definition of transition intermediaries and a typology of five intermediary types that is sensitive to the emergence, neutrality and goals of intermediary actors as well as their context and level of action. Some intermediaries are specifically set up to facilitate transitions, while others grow into the role during the process of socio-technical change. Based on the study, as an important consideration for future innovation governance, we argue that systemic and niche intermediaries are the most crucial forms of intermediary actors in transitions, but they need to be complemented by a full ecology of intermediaries, including regime-based transition intermediaries, process intermediaries and user intermediaries.

The nature of interactions between farmers and advisors is the focus of a growing body of research. While many studies explore the potential role of advisors in facilitating farmers' practice change in practices related to agricultural production such as soil, water, pest and animal health management, studies that specifically investigate how advisors support farmers with financial management (FM) are limited. The contribution this paper makes is to identify who farmers' FM advisors are and to shed light on how farmer-advisor interactions about FM are shaped. Semi-structured interviews with both farmers and a range of advisors (bankers, accountants, farm management consultants, specialist financial advisors and industry funded advisors) were conducted. The main findings are that farm financial information and FM are considered to be sensitive topics and being good at FM is not central to farmers' identity (relative to e.g. production management). Due to the sensitivity and taboo around the topic and the low level of interest in FM, most farmers do not actively seek to acquire financial advice. Farmers most openly discuss FM with their banker and accountant and some seek advice from farm management consultants. Advice seeking from other advisors was limited. Theoretical implications are that FM as a topic of advice introduces unique dynamics to interactions between farmer and advisor, which highlights the importance of better consideration of taboo and sensitive topics in advisory interactions. Furthermore, the findings on how the bankers' authority impacts on the advisory relationship with farmers indicated that issues of power in view of such authoritative advisory relationships need to be better considered. To enhance effective provisioning on FM advice, policy could focus on improving the match between demand and supply, and help create awareness about the importance of discussing FM to reduce the sensitivity of the topic.

SUMMARY The literature identifies multiple factors that can affect the adoption of new technologies and practices in agriculture to support farm innovation, such as farmers' socioeconomic characteristics and the characteristics of the promoted technology, among others. It has, however, scarcely contemplated the role of the farm workforce in technology and practice adoption. The objective of this study is (i) to describe innovative behaviour and its relation with farmers' ability to collaborate with the workforce in the adoption process; and (ii) to associate this description with the level of adoption of certain technologies and practices. Structural equation modelling (bifactor model) was used to identify the components of innovative behaviour, and correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between these components and adoption level. The results show that relevant components of innovative behaviour are farmers' ability to generate and implement new ideas, to extend their networks and to involve the workforce in the adoption process. Worker involvement proved to be a key factor within the definition of farmers' innovative behaviour, which additionally shows a positive and significant correlation with the level of adoption of technologies and practices. A main theoretical implication is that research on technology and practice adoption needs to move beyond looking at single owner-managers of (family) farms and incorporate workers into the unit of analysis. The practical and policy implications are that innovation support programmes should give more attention to workforce management, training and skills of owner-managers as transformative and inclusive leaders, as these are essential for technology and practice adoption, and more broadly for innovation capacity.

Research has identified an urgent need to renew agriculture's traditional design organization and foster more open, decentralized, contextualized and participatory approaches to design and innovation. While the concepts of co-design and co-innovation used in agriculture resemble features of open innovation, they may benefit from 'inbound open innovation' themselves through cross-fertilization with management studies, design science, science and technology studies, and organization studies. This special issue brings together different streams of research providing novel perspectives on co-design and co-innovation in agriculture, including methods, tools and organizations. It compares empirical experiences and theoretical advances to address a variety of issues (e.g., innovation ecosystems, collective design management, participatory design methods, affordances of system analysis tools and network leadership) that shed new light on co-design and co-innovation in support of sustainable agriculture and more broadly transitions towards a diversity of food systems and a circular bioeconomy. This introductory paper presents crosscutting insights and distills from these three directions for future research and practice in agricultural design and innovation: 1) Further opening design and innovation techniques and tools to better account for visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory expressions in evolving designs and what they afford users; 2) Further opening innovation networks in view of creating and stimulating integrative niches that can foster sustainability transitions, which also requires network managers instilling a reflexive stance of network members and broader awareness of power structures attached to organizational, sector and paradigmatic silos in agricultural systems; and 3) Further opening the range of innovation actors to include non-human actants to better account for the agency of the material and ecological.

The shrimp sector has been one of the fastest growing agri-food systems in the last decades, but its growth has entailed negative social and environmental impacts. Sustainable intensification will require innovation in multiple elements of the shrimp production system and its value chain. We use the case of the shrimp sector in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam to explore the constraints in the transition to sustainable intensification in shrimp farming, using an analytical framework based on innovation systems thinking, i.e., an aquaculture innovation systems framework. Using this framework, we conduct a systemic diagnostic of blocking mechanisms, interrelated sets of constraints within the aquaculture sector that hinder a transition toward sustainable intensification. Our findings show that the major constraints are institutional, with limited enforcement of the regulatory framework for input quality control, disease control, and wastewater management, and a lack of coordination between government bodies to design and enforce this framework. At farm level, limited access to capital favors pond mismanagement and the use of low-quality inputs. The absence of multi-stakeholder initiatives to foster dialog between actors in the value chain constrains the response to new regulations dictated by international market demand. Because of shrimp farming's connectivity with the wider ecosystem, sustainable intensification in shrimp farming will require collective management of water resources at the landscape level for disease and water pollution control. Ecological principles for pond management need to be promoted to farmers in order to reduce farmers' inefficient practices and build their capacity to understand new techniques and inputs available in the Vietnamese market. Our paper demonstrates for the utility of a multi-level, multi-dimension, and multi-stakeholder aquaculture innovation systems approach to analyze and address these blocking mechanisms in the transition to sustainable intensification in shrimp farming and aquaculture more broadly.

Well-designed and supported innovation niches may facilitate transitions towards sustainable agricultural futures , which may follow different approaches and paradigms such as agroecology, local place-based food systems , vertical farming, bioeconomy, urban agriculture, and smart farming or digital farming. In this paper we consider how the existing agricultural innovation systems (AIS) approach might be opened up to better support the creation of innovation niches. We engage with Innovation Ecosystems thinking to consider the ways in which it might enhance efforts to create multi-actor, cross-sectoral innovation niches that are capable of supporting transitions to sustainable agricultural systems across multiple scales. While sharing many similarities with AIS thinking, Innovation Ecosystems thinking has the potential to broaden AIS by: emphasizing the role of power in shaping directionality in innovation platforms or innovation communities that are connected to niches and their interaction with regimes; highlighting the plurality of actors and actants and the integral role of ecological actants in innovation; and offering an umbrella concept through which to cross scalar and paradigmatic or sector boundaries in order to engage with a variety of innovation systems affecting multifunctional agricultural landscapes and systems. To this end, an Agricultural Innovation Ecosystems approach may help design and support development of transboundary, inter-sectoral innovation niches that can realize more collective and integrated innovation in support of sustainability transitions, and help enact mission oriented agricultural innovation policy.

The increasingly complex challenges facing agricultural systems require problem-solving processes and systems analysis (SA) tools that engage multiple actors across disciplines. In this article, we employ the theory of af-fordances to unravel what tools may furnish users, and how those affordances contribute to a tool's usefulness in co-design and co-innovation processes. Affordance is defined as a function provided by an object through an interaction with a user. We first present a conceptual framework to assess the affordances of SA tools. This framework is then applied in a literature review of three SA tools used in agricultural systems research (fuzzy cognitive mapping, bio-economic whole-farm models, and role play and serious games). Through this exercise, we extend the SA tool design and implementation dialogue by illuminating (i) links between lower-level af-fordances, tool design, and heuristic functioning, and (ii) the central role of use setting and facilitation in mobilizing higher-level, productive affordances. Based on our findings, we make five propositions for how SA tool design and implementation in participatory problem-solving settings can be improved.

Smart farming (also referred to as digital farming, digital agriculture and precision agriculture) has largely been driven by productivity and efficiency aims, but there is an increasing awareness of potential socio-ethical challenges. The responsible research and innovation (RRI) approach aims to address such challenges but has had limited application in smart farming contexts. Using smart dairying research and development (R&D) in New Zealand (NZ) as a case study, we examine the extent to which principles of RRI have been applied in NZ smart dairying development and assess the broader lessons for RRI application in smart farming. We draw on insights from: a review of research on dairy technology use in NZ; interviews with smart dairying stakeholders; and the application of an analytical framework based on RRI dimensions. We conclude that smart dairying R&D and innovation activities have focused on technology development and on-farm use without considering socio-ethical implications and have excluded certain actors such as citizens and consumers. This indicates that readiness to enact RRI in this context is not yet optimal, and future RRI efforts require leadership by government or dairy sector organisations to fully embed RRI principles in the guidelines for large R&D project design (what has also been referred to as 'RRI maturity'). More broadly, enacting RRI in smart farming requires initial identification of RRI readiness in a given sector or country and devising a roadmap and coherent project portfolio to support capacity building for enacting RRI. Additionally, methods (such

An increasing number of studies have analysed the scope for, and the barriers to, transitions toward sustainability in the context of developing countries building on analytical perspectives from the sustainability transitions literature. This paper introduces a special issue on sustainability transitions in developing countries, which takes stock of this emerging field of research and presents new empirical research that contributes to further advancement of our understanding of the conditions in which sustainability transitions are likely to take place in developing countries and what is involved in these transformative processes. This introductory paper presents the five papers contained in the special issue. The first paper comprises a review of the existing literature on the subject, and the other four papers present new empirical research. The key findings of the papers are discussed in relation to previous research in the field specifically related to four crosscutting themes: (i) global-local linkages and external dependencies; (ii) stability and non-stability of regimes; (iii) undemocratic and non-egalitarian nature of regimes; and (iv) nurturing the development of niches versus the execution of individual projects. The introductory paper concludes by presenting a research agenda, which aims to provide promising avenues for future research on sustainability transitions in developing countries.

This paper analyses intermediary organisations in developing economy agricultural clusters. The paper critically engages with a growing narrative in studies of intermediaries that have stressed the ownership structure of intermediaries as a key driver for enabling knowledge transfer, inter-firm learning and upgrading of small producers in clusters. Two case studies of Latin American clusters are presented and discussed. The study suggests that in addition to ownership structure, cluster governance and the embeddedness of intermediaries in clusters are critical factors that need to be taken into account in understanding the influence of intermediaries in the upgrading of small producers in clusters.

Trade globalisation and climate change pose new challenges for food security in Africa. To unlock smallholder productivity, more understanding is needed of the institutional context and the role of development interventions , such as partnerships, in the food sector. This article proposes institutional logics as a theory and methodology for institutional diagnosis to gain insight into context-embedded negotiation and change processes created by project-based partnership interventions. We analyse the institutional logics of organisations active in the development of two value chains in Ghana to subsequently show how, in partnerships, these logics are negotiated in light of the objectives and interests of the intervention. The main findings are that donors, with their market and professionalisation logics, are quite influential, but many other development actors still adhere to principles of grassroots empowerment and social security. In the evolving partnership process, market logic remains strong, but coupled with institutional logics endorsing farmer empowerment and solidarity with the resource-poor. This is done in a process of bricolage in which field level implementers go against the dominant logic of project initiators: showing that newly introduced development logics are mitigated by an existing local structure fostering other development logics. The broader implication is that new development paradigms may need a considerable transition period to become mainstream. The concepts of institutional logics and bricolage as a diagnostic tool allow researchers to characterise the adherence to and blending of institutional logics by actors. This tool helps to understand the mobilisation strategy of the initiator and to follow the negotiation of logics that takes place amongst partners in partnerships. Detailed insights into the blending of potential partners' logics, pathways of negotiation processes and the plausible outcomes enable development practitioners to strategically prepare and manage their collaborative interventions.

Problems in agriculture and land use are increasingly recognised as complex, uncertain, operating at multiple levels (field to global value chains) and involving social, economic, institutional, and technological change. This has implications for how projects navigate complexity to achieve impact. However, few studies have systematically evaluated how project actors engage with other actors to configure capabilities and resources across multiple levels in agricultural innovation systems (AIS), from the individual to the network, to mobilise and build systemic innovation capacity. An analytical framework conceptualising the nested configuration of capabilities at multiple levels in the AIS is applied to two projects that successfully tackled agricultural and land management problems of differing complexity: (i) improving lamb survival; and (ii) sustainable land management in New Zealand. Findings indicate that innovation capacity constitutes project actors interacting with other AIS actors to configure capabilities and resources at different levels of the AIS in order to leverage positive project path dependencies and break path dependencies that are created by existing and historical capability configurations. Project actors also balance exploiting existing innovation capabilities, as well as using adaptive capability for exploring and creating new capability configurations to respond to emerging circumstances. This implies that projects should have strategic ambidexterity in terms of how they combine exploiting existing and exploring new networks to access, combine, create, or disconnect certain capabilities to address 'capability voids' in AIS. This requires support to projects to constantly scrutinise, through reflexive monitoring by dedicated facilitators, specific agriculture and land use policies connected to major sustainable development models (e.g. climate smart agriculture, urban farming, smart farming). The can help assess whether the AIS provides the right mix of capabilities and whether this is adequately supported by innovation policy, to realize transformative policy objectives.

This study identifies systemic problems and opportunities for transitions in water harvesting − a water conserving agricultural practice − in the context of a developing country pursuing greater agricultural sustainability. We utilize a combined and enriched functional-structural technological innovation system (TIS) analysis to identify systemic problems in the water harvesting TIS in rainfed agricultural production systems of Jordan. Results indicate Jordanian water harvesting TIS development is hindered by three principal blocking mechanisms: 1) inadequate financial resources to support innovation; 2) lack of a common vision across government ministries; 3) institutional problems that inhibit legitimizing the technology. These challenges are caused by interlocking systemic problems, which indicate the need for integrated policy approaches and interventions. Our analysis reinforces the concept that in developing countries, donor interventions should be centrally considered because they play a role in influencing priorities throughout the system and in supporting TIS development. Donors can counteract TIS development and contribute to directionality problems that favor one form of the technology over another, which gives insufficient protection for the water harvesting TIS until markets for technologies form. This would require more effective coordination between different donors' efforts to develop critical mass in TIS development. We also show that cultural institutions and interactions between formal and informal land tenure laws play a significant role in causing an erosion of trust in the government and counter efforts to promote and engage farming communities in water harvesting activities and innovation. This requires recognition that, in developing countries, informal institutions may have the same status as formal institutions.

Co-innovation can be effective for complex challenges – involving interactions amongst multiple stakeholders, viewpoints, perceptions, practices and interests across programmes, sectors and national systems. Approaches to challenges in the primary sector have tended to be linear, where tools and outputs are developed by a few, mostly scientists/researchers, and then extended to stakeholders. A co-innovation approach first deciphers and delineates the biophysical, societal, regulatory, policy, economic and environmental drivers, constraints and controls influencing these challenges at multiple levels. Second, stakeholder interactions and perspectives can inform and change the focus as well as help in co-developing solutions to deliver agreed outcomes. However, there is limited systematic and comparative research on how co-innovation works out in different projects. Here we analyse the results of applying a co-innovation approach to five research projects in the New Zealand primary sector. The projects varied in depth and breadth of stakeholder engagement, availability of ready-made solutions and prevalence of interests and conflicts. The projects show how and why co-innovation approaches in some cases contributed to a shared understanding of complex problems. Our results confirm the context specificity of co-innovation practices.

Purpose: In light of the discussion on ‘best-fit’ in pluralistic advisory systems, this article aims to present and discuss challenges for advisory services in serving various types of farmers when they seek and acquire farm business advice. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical basis is data derived from four workshops, five interviews with staff from advisory organizations, and interviews with 11 farmers. Findings: Emerging configurations serve different types of farmers, that is, private advisors serve different clients in different ways; these could be considered subsystems within the overall advisory system. Practical implications: Best-fit configurations of advisory services exist within a country setting in response to farmers’ information demands and how they seek information, as well as public goals of the advisory system, and lead to advisory subsystems. Policy-makers should monitor the emergence of these subsystems and become active participants in some of them, in line with the concept of the public sector as regulator of private and commercial advisory systems. Theoretical implications: Best-fit has been mainly explored at country level, but this study shows that, within countries, different advisory service configurations are formed. So, best-fit should not be considered at national level only, in view of subsystems which can have wider or narrower boundaries. More broadly, the concept of Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) should not be confined to the national level, for example, in view of farmer specializations within countries and the international dimensions of advisory systems. Originality/value: The originality lies in the further unraveling of heterogeneity within AKIS and what this implies for advisory service delivery configurations.

International centres of excellence (ICE) in which foreign research organizations are attracted to developing and emerging countries via dedicated funding schemes to support technological catching-up and strengthening of innovation systems, can have benefits for both host countries and their international research partners through knowledge spill-overs and business opportunities. As analysis of the process of setting up such ICEs is limited, the contribution of this study is assessing the enactment of such innovation policies aimed at inducing cross-border collaboration for R&D and innovation. This is done by investigating stakeholders' perceptions on the establishment and early functioning of Chile's ICE programme. The principal finding is that setting up and operating an ICE requires absorptive capacity of different kinds: not only to embed research and innovations ensuing from an ICE in the host country innovation system, but also to build capacities for operationalizing cross-border collaboration in an ICE and dealing with the dual embeddedness of ICE in both the host country and the home countries of the foreign research organizations. The latter type of absorptive capacity needs to be built both in the research organizations involved, and in the funding agencies enacting the innovation policy instruments that induce ICEs. Dedicated brokers facilitating such cross-border collaboration by bridging institutional and cultural gaps and supporting learning between partners, could be useful in this regard.

Aquaculture has experienced spectacular growth in the past decades, during which continuous innovation has played a significant role, but it faces increasing criticism regarding its ecological and social sustainability practices and the resulting challenges for future innovation processes. However, in the aquaculture literature, there is limited systematic knowledge of how innovation has been approached in terms of how the focus and the scope of aquaculture innovation processes are understood and managed. The objective of this paper is therefore to analyse the different approaches to innovation used in aquaculture development. We conducted a systematic review of the aquaculture literature, using an analytical lens derived from three main bodies of literature on approaches to conceptualize and manage innovation: Technology-driven, Systemic, and Business and Managerial approaches to innovation. One hundred publications were selected from the aquaculture literature covering the topic of aquaculture innovation. Analysis identified the Transfer of Technology approach as still the predominant approach to aquaculture innovation; and, even with the integration of elements of Systemic approaches, most studies remain focused on the farm level and are technology driven. Multi-dimensional studies, integrating technical, biophysi-cal, political, and institutional dimensions of innovation in aquaculture were found, but studies analysing interactions between levels remain scarce, have a strong emphasis on the institutional dimension, and lack focus on the management of the innovation process. Studies with cross-fertilizations between different approaches to aquaculture innovation are limited but address specific research questions regarding the extent to which specific target groups are included in interventions and the need to incorporate diverse dimensions in analysing innovation processes. Our analysis suggests that aquaculture research and technology design that feeds into aquaculture innovation could benefit from innovation management approaches that integrate constant feedback from users, especially when specific groups are being targeted for better inclusiveness, and thus could better foster multi-directional interactions between multiple actors connected to aquaculture systems. This would help to elevate the analysis from just the farm and improve the integration of institutional, political, economic, and socio-cultural dimensions for better management of the innovation process. The study of aquaculture innovation needs to take into consideration the important role of private sector actors and make better use of systemic approaches to further elucidate the multi-dimensional and multi-level interplays in complex aquaculture systems. Ultimately, in-terdisciplinary research on aquaculture innovation could deliver significant insights supporting the development of a resilient and sustainable aquaculture sector. Statement of relevance: Using an analytical lens derived from the literature on innovation approaches, this study systematically analyses approaches to innovation used in aquaculture development. We identify the main trends and existing gaps in aquaculture innovation research and then discuss the potential complementarities between different approaches to innovation in order to better understand and support innovation in the aquaculture sector.

The rubber boom across much of Southeast Asia has led to environmental destruction, and the resultant crash in the price of rubber has destabilised livelihoods. We investigated the necessary factors required to enable a transition towards a more sustainable model for rubber cultivation in Southwest China (i.e. the ‘greening’ of rubber cultivation), using a framework for the integrative study of multiple aspects in complex land use issues. We present findings from stakeholder interviews and a stakeholder workshop, and discuss their relevance within and beyond Southwest China. The current focus of researchers and development practitioners tends to be on finding technical solutions to address unsustainable rubber cultivation practices. However, stakeholder consultations revealed that the key barriers were more social: low levels of trust and knowledge exchange between stakeholder groups and fragmented visions about the future of the landscape. It is very important to continue the economic prosperity initially brought by rubber, but, without improved communication between government and researchers and smallholder farmers, this will be very difficult to achieve. A wider landscape perspective is needed to address issues in rubber cultivation to avoid repeating the same problems of cash crop boom and bust experienced with other crops, most notably bananas. We conclude that more effort should be put into developing mechanisms that integrate technical knowledge, enhance social relationships, and present a forum for reconciling – or at least acknowledging – the differing needs, knowledge, and objectives of different groups, and transcending the power dynamics between smallholder farmers and government and researchers.

– Oil palm is an important industrial, livelihood and food crop in Ghana. Smallholders produce the bulk of the palm fruits and small-scale processors, mainly women, produce most of the crude palm oil. Poor practices lead to a high proportion of free fatty acids in the crude palm oil and the processors thus cannot access remunerative national and international markets. Exploratory and diagnostic studies identified the absence of rules and regulations governing processing as a major factor. An innovation platform was convened and facilitated to remove the identified institutional constraints. Based on event tracing, this paper reports a study of the effects of the innovation platform's interventions and how these were achieved. Institutional entrepreneurs are shown to play important roles: they mobilised resources such as expertise, knowledge, access to information and high-level political power to influence small-scale processors to adopt alternative practices. The institutional changes observed are shown to arise in cooperation between traditional authorities (chiefs), the district legislature and authorities at the national level, who together institutionalised the experimental actions and processes taken in the study area. The institutional elements they most affected were: rules and regulations, the legitimacy of new practices and organisational arrangements, co-generation of knowledge, material resources, and the strategic and communication skills of key actors. Keywords: oil palm / free fatty acids / smallholders / innovation platforms Résumé – Plateformes d'Innovation et changement institutionnel : le cas des petits producteurs d'huile de palme au Ghana. Au Ghana, l'huile de palme est un produit alimentaire et industriel important ainsi qu'une ressource monétaire indispensable aux petits producteurs, qui fournissent l'essentiel des régimes de fruits. Les petits transformateurs, des femmes pour la plupart, produisent la plus grande part de la production d'huile de palme brute. Du fait de techniques inappropriées, ces huiles contiennent une grande proportion d'acides gras libres et les transformateurs ne peuvent donc pas avoir accès aux grands marchés, nationaux et internationaux, les plus rentables. Des diagnostics préliminaires ont identifié l'absence de règles et de réglementation sur la transformation comme une contrainte majeure. Une plateforme d'innovation a été établie pour réfléchir à ces contraintes institutionnelles et agir sur elles. En se basant sur le suivi de ses travaux, cet article rapporte les effets de cette plateforme d'innovation et discute de la façon dont ils ont été obtenus. Les entrepreneurs institutionnels jouent un rôle important, par exemple ils mobilisent l'expertise, les connaissances, l'accès à l'information ainsi qu'au réseau politique de haut niveau et ont motivé les petites transformatrices à adopter des pratiques alternatives. Les changements institutionnels observés émergent de la coopération entre les autorités traditionnelles (chefs), les représentants locaux de l'État et les autorités nationales, qui, ensemble, ont institutionnalisé les actions expérimentales dans les régions étudiées. Les éléments institutionnels les plus significatifs sont : les réglementations et les règles, la légitimité des nouvelles pratiques et les arrangements organisationnels, la co-production des connaissances, les ressources matérielles, et les compétences stratégiques et de communication des acteurs clefs. Mots clés : palmier à huile / acides gras libres / petits exploitants / plateformes d'innovation