Innovation system approach to agricultural development: policy implications for agricultural extension delivery in Nigeria

A sustainable and dynamic approach to agricultural development has remained of great concern to the Nigerian government and a priority for discourse in the policy arena. However, past efforts have largely focused on public research and extension institutions as the sole source of innovation/knowledge required to trigger development in the agricultural sector. <br /><br />This paper argues that the emerging reforms and changes in knowledge structure of agriculture explicitly indicate that the traditional agricultural research and extension system alone cannot sufficiently address the challenges of the new trends. It is argued that innovation system approach offers a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach to innovation and processes, incorporating emerging reforms and approaches for agricultural development. <br /><br />The paper begins by reviewing the concept of innovation system, it then moves on to examine its application to Nigerian agriculture. The authors concludes that the adoption of the innovation system approach has major policy implications for extension delivery in Nigeria, and that the comparative advantage of the approach should be explored.<br /><br />Key recommendations include: government and extension administrators should promote the adoption of an agricultural innovation system perspective in policy analysis among stakeholders<br /> policy makers should identify weak or missing components and linkages within the agricultural innovation systems and to take measures accordingly of innovations being promoted, while extension should build in such policy information into technology packages to the farmers policy makers and administrators should entrench linkage mandates into policies establishing the research extension systems and strategies for increasing private sector involvement in development government should encourage and promote farmers&rsquo; and private sector innovation by enacting favourable policies (patenting, reward system), while extension administrators should build capabilities through training to facilitate, analyse and promote farmer innovations