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Innovations are the driving force for agricultural development under present diverse situations of uncertainty. The innovation system perspective acknowledges the contributions made by all stakeholders involved in knowledge development, dissemination and appropriation. According to the specific agricultural production system, farmers adopt innovations, modify them or innovate on their own. This paper examines the role of farmers' experiments and innovations in Cuba's agricultural innovation system (AIS), identifies knowledge exchange encounters and describes some strategies implemented to institutionalize farmers' experiments and innovations. The research methods comprised 34 semi-structured interviews with agricultural experts from the science, administration and advisory system, and 31 free list questionnaires to assess the institutional influence on farmers' experiments and innovations. In addition, three case studies of outstanding farmers' experiments are presented. The results suggest that the government's commitment to social participation in knowledge development provides the basic prerequisite for an effective integration of farmers' experiments and innovation in Cuba. The historically conditioned vertical structure of knowledge development and dissemination is gradually changing toward more horizontal procedures. The dynamic exchange of ideas at all kinds of interactive meetings, such as workshops or farmers' field schools, have favored farmer to farmer learning as well as knowledge sharing with research, academic and extension officials. This multi-stakeholders' approach contributes to institutionalize farmers' knowledge. Farmers' experiments and innovations play a major role in improving farm management and thereby can contribute to build resilience at the farming system level as well as for the national agricultural system.

<p>The creative process that leads to farmers’ innovations is rarely studied or described precisely in agricultural sciences. For academic scientists, obvious limitations of farmers’ experiments are e.g. precision, reliability, robustness, accuracy, validity or the correct analysis of cause and effect. Nevertheless, we propose that ‘farmers’ experiments’ underpin innovations that keep organic farming locally tuned for sustainability and adaptable to changing economic, social and ecological conditions. We first researched the structure and role of farmers’ experiments by conducting semi-structured interviews of 47 organic farmers in Austria and 72 organic/agroecology farmers in Cuba in 2007 and 2008. Seventysix more structured interviews explored the topics and methods used by Austrian farmers that were ‘trying something’. Farmers engaged in activities that can be labelled as farmers experiments because these activities include considerable planning, manipulating variables, monitoring effects and communicating results. In Austria and Cuba 487 and 370 individual topics, respectively, were mentioned for experimenting by the respondents. These included topics like the introduction of new species or varieties, testing various ways of commercialization or the testing of alternative remedies. Two thirds (Austria) and one third (Cuba) of the farmers who experimented had an explicit mental or written plan before starting. In both countries, the majority of the farmers stated that they set up their experiments first on a small scale and expanded them if the outcome of the experiments was satisfactory. Repetitions were done by running experiments in subsequent years and the majority of the farmers monitored the experiments regularly. In both countries, many experiments were not discrete actions but nested in time and space. For further research on learning and innovation in organic farming we propose an explicit appreciation of farmers’ experiments, encouraging further in-depth research on the details of the farmers’ experimental process and encouraging the inclusion of farmers’ experiments in strategies for innovation in organic and non organic farming. Strategic research and innovation agendas for organic farming would benefit from including organic farmers as co-researchers in all steps of the research process in order to encourage co-learning between academic scientists and organic farmers.</p>

Due to the collapse of the socialist systems in 1989, Cuba's government promoted a series of structural changes to deal with resource scarcity and to enhance agricultural productivity. The upcoming crisis triggered adaptation strategies and led to a large-scale transition process towards a more sustainable model of agriculture. Farmers' experiments have been an implicit part of this process. Nowadays, farmers' capacity to experiment is widely accepted among the scientific community. However, detailed descriptions of farmers' approaches to experimentation are scarce. In this study, we examine the topics, resources, sources, motives, methods and outcomes of farmers' experiments in Cuba. The research methods comprised semi-structured interviews with 72 Cuban farmers, field notes, participant observation and a research diary. Key informants and 34 expert interviews added important insights into analysis. The results reveal that farmers' experiments are an integral part of farming in Cuba. Most farmers reported realizing their own experiments on their farms. The use of locally available resources was a crucial element for farmers' experiments. The topics were related to the introduction of new plant species or varieties, plant production, mechanization, fertilization, plant protection and the introduction of new animal species. The farmers' own idea was the most important source for experimenting, followed by ideas offered by colleagues and family members. Increasing production, independence from external resources and improving farm management were the main motives for experimenting. More than half of the farmers started to experiment without detailed written or mental planning, but made some considerations about the experiment before starting. Some planned more in detail and a few farmers devised a written plan, draft or model. Starting on a small scale was a way to minimize risks. The experiments were mainly evaluated by observation and comparison. Only a few farmers took records of their experiments. The most important outcomes were higher production, food selfsufficiency, work easement, improved plant health, increased knowledge, higher working efficiency and better taste of products. Farmers' experiments are a means of learning and they enhance farmers' capacity to adapt to changing conditions.

Farmers have always lived in changing environments where uncertainty and disturbances are inevitable. Therefore, farmers need the ability to adapt to change in order to be able to maintain their farms. Experimentation is one way for farmers to learn and adapt, and may be a tool to build farm resilience. Farmers' experiments as defined in this paper are activities where something totally or partially new is introduced at the farm and the feasibility of this introduction is evaluated. The theoretical framework applied to study farmers' experiments is the concept of resilience. Resilience is the capacity of social-ecological systems to cope with change, and is a framework used to assess complex systems of interactions between humans and ecosystems. This paper explores to which extent farmers' experimentation can help build farm resilience. In addition to arguments found in the literature, five organic farms in Eastern Austria are used to illustrate this potential. The farmers were interviewed in 2007 and 2008. The respective farmers all worked fulltime on their farms, were between 34 and 55 years old, and owned farms between 15 and 76 ha. These farmers experimented in ways that enhance resilience -at the farm and in the region. The outcome of experiments can be management changes, new insights, or technology that can be passed on and potentially be built into education and advisory institutions. To encourage farmers' experiments, it is important to develop conditions that support farmers in their experimenting role.

Farmers' experiments can be defined as the autonomous activities of farmers to try or introduce something new at the farm, and include evaluation of success or failure with farmers' own methods. Experiments enable farmers to adapt their farms to changing circumstances, build up local knowledge, and have resulted in countless agricultural innovations. Most research on the topic has been conducted in countries of the south. In this paper, however, we present experiments of randomly sampled organic farmers in Austria, and we discuss implications for agricultural innovation systems. In 76 structured questionnaire interviews we investigated topics, motives, methods and outcomes of farmers' experiments, and factors related to the frequency of experimentation. From the interviewed farmers, 90% reported experiments, and the majority of experiments (94%) involved monitoring and evaluation strategies. Farmers who reported a high frequency of experimentation showed a significantly higher propensity to plan, document and repeat their experiments, and had a more positive attitude towards experimenting than farmers that rarely experimented. We conclude that experimenting is a common activity among organic farmers in Austria, and that farmers have their own methods to conduct and assess their experiments. The most significant outcome is the creation of new knowledge, stressing the importance of experimentation for learning and adaptive farm management. Farmers' experiments are significant on two levels, i.e. at individual farm level and at the level of agricultural innovation systems. Taking full advantage of this innovative potential requires a better involvement of farmers as co-researchers into the development of agricultural innovations.

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