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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 31(2)

Enhancing local innovation to improve water productivity in crop–livestock systems

Ann Waters-Bayer A C and Wolfgang Bayer B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A ETC EcoCulture, POB 64, 3830 AB Leusden, The Netherlands.

B Rohnsweg 56, 37085 Göttingen, Germany.

C Corresponding author. Email: ann.waters-bayer@etcnl.nl

The Rangeland Journal 31(2) 231-235 https://doi.org/10.1071/RJ09009
Submitted: 16 January 2009  Accepted: 30 March 2009   Published: 19 June 2009

Abstract

In their efforts to adapt to changing conditions and grasp opportunities, small-scale farmers have been innovating since time immemorial. With increasing scarcity of water, harnessing water productivity in crop–livestock systems will require enhancing such local innovation processes, including both endogenous development and local adaptation of exogenous interventions. The paper highlights the importance of taking an innovation systems perspective in this endeavour. The various actors involved in agricultural production, extension, research, education, policymaking and trade who can contribute to or constrain innovation processes need to be recognised and their interactions understood. Particularly in the realm of working with water – often the task of women and girls – gender aspects must be addressed, including women’s role in innovation processes and the impact of change in water access and use on women’s workloads and decision-making.

The paper presents examples of technical and socio-institutional innovation to improve crop–livestock water productivity that have been developed by local resource users. It demonstrates how scientists and technical advisors in research and development organisations can harness these dynamics in local knowledge by identifying local innovations, exploring together with local people the rationale behind them, and explaining in scientific terms why they work. It argues for an approach to research that allows farmers to be creative and that strengthens their capacities to continue to adapt to changing conditions.

It stresses the role of researchers in revealing how farmers are developing solutions that challenge official policy, and then joining forces with farmers to bring about policy change to accommodate and encourage local innovation. Thus, it presents one ‘intervention’ that could enhance crop–livestock water productivity: promoting an approach of recognising local innovation and engaging in participatory research with local people who are developing their own ways to make the most of scarce water.

Additional keywords: gender, local knowledge, natural resource management, participatory research, policy dialogue, stakeholder analysis.


Acknowledgements

We thank the partners in the former Indigenous Soil and Water Conservation (ISWC) programme and the current Prolinnova (Promoting Local Innovation in ecologically-oriented agriculture and natural resource management) programme, both funded mainly by the Netherlands Directorate General for International Cooperation (DGIS) for many of the insights and examples included in this paper. We likewise thank the project ‘Improving Water Productivity of Crop–Livestock Systems of Sub-Saharan Africa’, supported by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), for inviting this contribution and making it possible for the first author to take part in the workshop in Addis Ababa in September 2007.


References


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