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Farmer-led research webinar hosted by U of Guelph, Canada

   Farmer-researcher Angie Koch, EFAO (Photo: Stills Motion Content)

On 12 March 2021, students of the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development of the University of Guelph in the province of Ontario, Canada, organised a webinar on “Farmer-led research in the resilience of rural communities”. The webinar examined farmer-led research (FLR) from the perspectives of farmers in the Global North and South.

Angie Koch, a farmer researcher with the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFAO), made a keynote presentation on her experiences in FLR. She stressed how important it is in her research to follow her own curiosity and seek answers to her own questions for her farm. She enjoys learning from other farmer-researchers' methods and results as much as she appreciates the opportunity to share her own.

Sharad Rai: new Prolinnova–Asia Regional Coordinator

Sharad Rai is not a stranger to Prolinnova. He joined Prolinnova–Nepal in 2005 representing Practical Action and was an active member of the National Working Group (NWG). Sharad was involved in identifying and documenting farmer innovation and supporting farmer-led joint research in Nepal.

During his time in the NWG, he developed guidelines for Participatory Innovation Development in Nepal, which was awarded a prize as the Knowledge contest winner for Best Knowledge Product by Practical Action Headquarters in the UK in 2007. Sharad played a key role as part of the Prolinnova Nepal’s organising team of two key events in Kathmandu in 2007: the first national-level Farmer Innovation Fair and the Asia-Pacific Innovation Symposium.

African Partners Workshop 2020 held via Zoom

A regional workshop bringing together African Country Platforms (CPs) was held on 26–28 October 2020. It had originally been planned to be hosted by Prolinnova–Cameroon, but – because of the travel restrictions in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic – had to be held on the Zoom platform. The virtual workshop was organised and facilitated by the two Prolinnova Subregional Coordinators in Africa, Abdel-Karim Ali Mahamane (West & Central Africa) and Jacob Wanyama (Eastern & Southern Africa).

Proli-GEAFaSa rapport / report 2020

Ce rapport du projet de Promotion de l’innovation locale en Gestion de l’Eau dans l’Agriculture Familiale au Sahel (Proli-GEAFaSa) a pour but de partager sur l’avancement de la mise en œuvre des activités au cours de la première année.

Ce projet financé par Misereor vise à améliorer la gestion de l’eau en agriculture familiale au Sahel – en particulier au Burkina Faso et au Sénégal – par l’identification d’innovations locales de petits agriculteurs familiaux, l’expérimentation conjointe menée par les agriculteurs pour les valider et / ou améliorer et la diffusion des principes et des idées inspirantes à d’autres agriculteurs. Cela leur permettra d’améliorer leur sécurité alimentaire et leur résilience face aux changements climatiques.

Scaling up local capacity to innovate: Year 1 report

Year 1 of the 3-year Misereor-funded project Scaling Up Local Capacity to Innovate for Food and Nutrition Security (SULCI-FaNS) was completed in September 2020. Prolinnova Country Platforms (CPs) in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana and Kenya are engaged in strengthening the innovation capacities of small-scale farmers, particularly women and women’s groups, to improve food and nutrition security and resilience of local communities. They are also building the capacity of other stakeholders in agricultural research and development in promoting local innovation and farmer-led joint research and seeking to scale up this approach. SULCI-FaNS supports activities in the West & Central Africa and Eastern & Southern Africa subregions working toward regionalisation of the Prolinnova network in Africa. The Year 1 report describes achievements at these different levels.

Virtual Global Farmer Innovation Fair, 10–11 Feb 2021

Annual report 2019–20 from Eastern & Southern Africa

As part of the regionalisation process within the Prolinnova network, two subregional coordinators (SRCs) were appointed part-time in Africa, with funding through the SULCI-FaNS (Scaling Up Local Capacity to Innovation for Food and Nutrition Security) project. In the Eastern & Southern Africa subregion, Jacob Wanyama started work as the new SRC in June 2020, taking over from the interim SRC Brigid Letty.

Promoting women’s innovation in feeding children in Benin & Kenya

The project NaviNut “Enhancing women’s agency in navigating changing food environments to improve child nutrition in African drylands” held its start-up workshop in early December 2020. It takes a transdisciplinary research approach: co-creating knowledge across different scientific disciplines and societal stakeholders. The German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture (DITSL) coordinates the work together with the Center for Research and Development in Drylands (CRDD, a member of Prolinnova–Kenya); the University of Parakou (involved in training on participatory innovation development/PID with another project under the Prolinnova umbrella) and the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin; the Tropical Institute of Community Health and Development (TICH) and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya; and South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences in Germany. This 3-year project is funded by the German Ministry for Food & Agriculture (BMEL).

Peter Gubbels joins Prolinnova Oversight Group

In December 2020, Peter Gubbels – a Canadian living and working in northern Ghana – was selected by the Prolinnova Country Platforms (CPs) in West & Central Africa to take the seat for this subregion in the Prolinnova Oversight Group. He was nominated by the CP in northern Ghana.

Prolinnova–Kenya celebrates Farmer Innovation Fair

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