Farmers’ Participation in Operational Groups to Foster Innovation in the Agricultural Sector: An Italian Case Study

Abstract

Recently, the interpretation of the innovation process has changed significantly. Its linear model has evolved to a dynamic and ongoing participatory approach where cooperation, oriented to generate co-ownership, is the essence to co-produce knowledge among multiple actors. Farmers’ direct participation in the process is widely accepted since they contribute with first-hand information, perceptions, field experiences, and feedback that are essential for the design and implementation of a project. The European Union encourages their participation through the European Rural Development Policy that promotes competitiveness and sustainability in the agriculture and forestry sectors, building bridges among heterogeneous stakeholders that complement each other to find an innovative solution to a given problem. Thus far, despite participation importance, few details have been provided about producer’s contributions within the process. Consequently, this paper attempts to explore the modus operandi of an Italian Operational Group to get insights about the farmers’ participation and identify the factors that could influence and foster the interactive innovation process. The results, based on a participatory observation, key informants’ interviews, and theory reflection, revealed that farmers are active players in the design and implementation phases. Yet, their participation is not constant throughout the entire process. Empower them to find solutions with different players is a complex challenge as it requires motivation, commitment, trust, and an open communication among different actors.

Climate-Smart Agriculture: Sleeping Beauty of the Hungarian Agribusiness

“…During innovation, the company uses new technologies, builds a new organization, produces a new product, and uses new sales channels. Agricultural innovation can be interpreted by extending it to the whole of agriculture [49][50][51]. Efficiency is of key importance not only from a sectoral but also from a social point of view in the field, as agricultural innovations can effectively contribute to the implementation of sustainable agriculture [52], which has increasing importance in the age of digital transition.…”

Community-Based Joint Business Model Design for Solutions to Implementing Technology Innovation in Small Farmers

“…The design stage was critical in applied and action research, namely building a model or strategy for the innovation or technology being developed so that the feasibility of the innovation or technology could be achieved (Diaconu 2011;Foray et al 2012;Frow et al 2015). The construction of the joint-business-unitmodel stage was carried out using a participatory method approach and a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) (Schot & Steinmueller 2018), with the participation of farmer groups and stakeholders engaged in fostering farmer institutions, agricultural business actors, and the Department of Agriculture of Pasuruan and Lamongan districts (Ananga et al 2021;Hidayah, Wiyono & Karyanto 2021;Molina et al 2021). The participatory method was carried out in three meetings, resulting in a draft business unit model run by farmer groups.…”

Do EIP-AGRI operational groups improve farmers’ performance? An analysis of treatment effects in intensive farming systems

“…In literature, existing studies about OGs have focused on topics such as progress in implementation of OGs (Knotter et al, 2019;Schreuder et al, 2022), key factors for successful projects (Harrahill et al, 2022;Maziliauskas et al, 2018;McCarthy et al, 2021;Molina et al, 2021;Parzonko et al, 2022), performed functions (Piñeiro et al, 2021), governance processes (Giarè and Vagnozzi, 2021), and consistency with the objectives of European strategies (Cristiano and Proietti, 2018;Eckerberg et al, 2023;Giarè and Vagnozzi, 2021).…”

“…The assessment of OGs involves several aspects related to the implementation of the funding programme, the selection of projects, and their results and effects (Gehrlein and von Kutzleben, 2016). The existing studies about OGs mainly focus on the first two aspects as well as on key factors for successful projects, governance, and consistency with policy objectives, while little or no emphasis is placed on the assessment of impacts (Cristiano and Proietti, 2018;Eckerberg et al, 2023;Giarè and Vagnozzi, 2021;Harrahill et al, 2022;Knotter et al, 2019;Maziliauskas et al, 2018;McCarthy et al, 2021;Molina et al, 2021;Parzonko et al, 2022;Piñeiro et al, 2021;Schreuder et al, 2022). Factors related to availability and methods of collection of project data as well as the stage at which these studies were carried out may explain this shortcoming.…”