The potential for monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) to enhance innovation and impact in agricultural research and development is receiving increasing attention. New Zealand’s AgResearch Limited and Australia’s CSIRO Agriculture and Food are working with their scientists to support the organisations to achieve greater innovation and impact by embedding MEL into research programs and projects. However, both organisations have found it challenging to systematically demonstrate the value of their MEL initiatives. While there is an increasing number of case studies and anecdotes pointing towards the contribution of MEL to fostering innovation that delivers social, economic and environmental impacts, there is limited evidence, collated through systematic and rigorous methods, to substantiate this. This article presents an evaluation framework drawing on insights from complexity science (the Cynefin framework), evaluation practice and research (complexity-aware M&E and reflective practice) and innovation capacities (learning, reflection and adaptation). The framework is intended for research organisations working in agricultural innovation systems to be able to demonstrate the value of their MEL initiatives as well as carry out comparative analyses. It also supports organisational learning to better inform evaluative strategies and actions.

Purpose: Explore advisor understanding of their roles in advisory systems characterised by differing mixes of public and private funding and delivery. Methodology: A systems perspective of advisory system governance is combined with an individual perspective of advisor roles. Data from a survey of 38 Australian, 19 New Zealand, 606 Argentine and 279 Brazilian respondents were analysed for statistical differences. Findings: In all contexts, advisor priorities reflect state or industry goals. Where there is more private funding and delivery, advisors also prioritise farmer commercial goals. Under public extension funding and delivery, group methods and capacity building are emphasised to reach many farmers and realise public goals. Practical implications: Advisors play a crucial role in reconciling competing national, industry and farmer goals at the farm-level. This emphasises participatory methods and intermediary positions in the advisory system to facilitate dialogue and support farmers to realise competing goals. A policy implication is public and industry funding is needed for advisors to engage with public and industry organisations to understand and contribute to policies and objectives they will be advising on. Theoretical implications: Combining a systems perspective of country-level advisory system governance with an individual perspective of advisor roles highlights that advisor understanding of their roles are related to the public governance context in which they operate. Originality/value: The advisor understanding of their roles in the advisory system is related to different governance of pluralistic advisory systems. This contributes to articulating advisory policies and practices to support coordination and inclusion in pluralistic advisory systems.

and South Africa were surveyed using convenience sampling (n=2707). A typology of extension agents with different profiles of objectives was built using data from five of the countries. Findings:The most frequent individual extension objectives were to increase farmers' knowledge through training, and productive modernisation of farms. Four types of extension agents were identified: the socially-engaged extension agent; the agricultural production and business expert; the trainer of subsistence farmers, and the pro-poor practitioner.Practical implications: Researchers can use these results to analyse specific institutional settings, and extension institutions to reflect on the type of extension agent that best fit their institutional goals and to select practitioners accordingly.Theoretical implications: Productive modernisation persists as a fundamental individual extension objective in many countries. Individual extension objectives are not stand-alone preferences but clusters of interrelated priorities, which do not necessarily coincide with those of extension institutions or national policies.Practitioners' agency plays a key role in realising (or not) a fit between extension service offerings and demand for extension services, and contributes to a wider repertoire of advisory styles in extension systems than implied by extension institutional objectives.Originality/value: This research adds to the literature by examining individual extension agents, rather than the institutional extension objectives, and providing a typology of agents with different profiles of objectives.

No abstract

No abstract