Endogenous learning and innovation in African smallholder agriculture: lessons from Guinea-Bissau

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To advance understanding about the way endogenous knowledge on mangrove swamp rice (MSR) farming is transmitted, reinvented and negotiated between generations and highlight the implications this has for R4D.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Long-term qualitative research using an ethnographic approach, technography and biographies of farmers.

Findings

The endogenous Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS) is dynamic but faces shortcomings owing to socio-environmental changes. This highlights the relevance of knowledge exchanges from multiple sources, eroding the divide between endogenous and exogenous from the farmers’ point of view. For positive exogenously induced socio-technical change to occur, external actors must fully understand the conditions under which (a) endogenous knowledge is produced and reinvented and (b) endogenous innovations flow among farmers. This will then allow the co-production of innovations adapted to each specific agro-ecological, cultural and socio-economic context, leaving them to be further transformed and refashioned by smallholders to meet their individual ‘dispositions’ and generate the roots necessary for a strong AKIS.

Practical implications

This paper highlights the importance of locally embedded processes of learning and innovation, the better understanding of which can provide a more solid basis for the co-production of technologies and the establishment of an AKIS.

Theoretical implications

This paper improves understanding of socio-technological change in smallholder agriculture by focusing on endogenous processes of learning and innovation.

Originality

This paper advances the knowledge on endogenous processes of learning and socio-technical change in smallholder agriculture.

KEYWORDS:

• Knowledge and innovation
• socio-technical change
• research for development
• ethnography
• mangrove swamp rice cultivation
• innovation history

Acknowledgements

This article was written with the financial assistance of the European Union, DeSIRA project ‘Mangroves, mangrove rice and mangrove people: sustainably improving rice production, ecosystems and livelihoods’ (Grant Contract FOOD/2019/412-700). This study received backing from the Forest Research Centre, a research unit funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia I.P. (FCT), Portugal (UIDB/00239/2020) and by the Laboratory for Sustainable Land Use and Ecosystem Services (LA/P/0092/2020). The authors want to thank Joseph Sandoval, Ramon Sarró, Pablo Leunda and the two anonymous reviewers for their inspiring comments and to Matilda Merkohasanaj for the elaboration of the map.

Statement

This manuscript has not been previously published and it is not under review for publication elsewhere. Its publication has been accepted by both authors, and tacitly by the responsible authorities of the University of Lisbon. The authors also declare that, if accepted, the article will not be published elsewhere in any form without the consent of the copyright-holder.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this article we use AKIS instead of AIS to stress the primacy of endogenous knowledge and innovation in MSR farming.

2 We use the concepts of ‘formal’ and ‘exogenous’ (and ‘informal’/’endogenous’) interchangeably in relation to knowledge production and diffusion, and socio-technical change. For tools, we use the concepts of endogenous (locally conceived and produced) and exogenous (industrially produced).

3 In this article, the concept of technology encompasses ‘plant varieties and animal breeds, farming practices and agricultural production and processing tools, in addition to specific mental constructs, cultural codes, and forms of management and co-operation’ (Okali, Sumberg, and Farrington 1994, 1).

4 Among both groups, a boy can start later when he is needed for household cattle herding.

5 In this article we use a very broad definition of children (up to 15 years old) and youth (between 16 and marriage, as a man or woman has full adult duties and rights only after that). For elder we used the age grades above 65 (up until becoming a dependent member who can no longer work).

6 On this topic, see Cormier-Salem (1999).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by European Commission [grant number FOOD/2019/412-700, UIDB/00239/2020].

Notes on contributors

Merlin Leunda Martiarena

Merlin Leunda Martiarena is a junior research fellow at CEF, School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Portugal. He is a scholarship holder and the field manager within the EU-funded DeSIRA-Malmon project ‘Mangroves, mangrove rice, mangrove people: sustainably improving rice production, ecosystems and livelihoods’. His PhD project focuses on the characterization and the development, merging research with action, of the Mangrove Swamp Rice Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS) in Guinea-Bissau, country where he has been working since 2017 in the private and non-profit sectors for innovative agroecological projects.

Marina Padrão Temudo

Marina Padrão Temudo is a senior research fellow at CEF, Department of Natural Resources, Environment and Land, School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Portugal. She has conducted extensive ethnographic field research on development and conservation in Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, S. Tomé and Príncipe, and in the Republic of Guinea.