Take It to the Farmer: Moving Proven Technologies to Adoption.

Moving proven technologies from innovation to adoption by African smallholder farmers is perhaps the greatest overarching barrier for the transformation of smallholder agriculture as the gap between actual and potential yield is highest amongst these farmers. In this presentation, I will outline four key lessons learned from our research in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Burkina Faso. These lessons for moving proven innovations to adoption are: 1) Multidisciplinary thinking for sustainable intensification. We must look at proven innovations and technologies through a multidisciplinary lens in order to fully understand tradeoffs and barriers to adoption such as: economic performance (e.g. income generation, variability of profit, income diversification, input use efficiency, market participation, etc.), human condition (e.g. human nutrition, food safety, food security, human health, labor, etc.), social factors (e.g. gender dimensions, equity of youth and marginalized groups, etc.), environmental factors (e.g. sustainable productive capacity, vegetative cover, plant biodiversity, soil health, water quality, etc.) and production (e.g. yield, fodder production, animal productivity, etc.). 2) Capacity building along the entire knowledge transfer value train (i.e. university faculty partnerships, institutional and infrastructure development, graduate student training, extension worker and private sector training, farmer training and connection to information sources, youth engagement). 3) Adaptive scaling through enabling farmers with multidisciplinary decision making tools and access to adaptable technology choices; not a one size fits all recommendation. Farmers are rational, innovative and know their farming systems and what will work for their situation best. Providing an enabling environment and options of adaptable, locally proven technologies is the best route towards location specific adoption. 4) Alignment of research and developmental projects with country led priorities (i.e. Malabo Declaration) and established institutions for sustained transformation.