Innovating a system for producing and distributing hybrid oil palm seedlings to smallholder farmers in Benin

Abstract

-This article analyses the development of a system for producing and distributing hybrid oil palm seedlings to small-scale famers. The existing seed system had become so corrupted that the seedlings actually planted were largely of unimproved kinds. The article describes institutional experiments carried out by two Innovation Platforms (IPs) in order to improve the oil palm seed system. Theory Guided Process Inquiry was used to document, evaluate and analyse these interventions. The experiments catalysed changes in interpersonal and inter-organisational power relationships that enabled further co-learning and co-construction of understanding and action among key stakeholders in the oil palm domain. The IPs and those who became local champions of seed system innovation, also triggered change in institutional behaviours, technologies, and practices that further improved the integrity of the seed system. Official nursery holders must now be trained, registered and licensed by local government. Farmers are encouraged to source hybrid seedlings only from licensed nurseries. These achievements were then shared and discussed with officials and higher level government leaders, drawing on IP members' pre-existing professional and personal networks. Improvement of the oil palm seed system was included in the government's latest 5-year development plan.Keywords: institutional development / stakeholders / innovation / seedling system / oil palm / Benin Résumé -Systèmes d'innovation pour la production et la distribution de plants améliorés de palmier à huile aux petits producteurs du Bénin. Cet article analyse le développement d'un système de production et de distribution de plants améliorés de palmier à huile aux petits producteurs. Le système semencier actuel est si corrompu que les plants fournis sont de mauvaise qualité. Cet article décrit des expérimentations institutionnelles à l'aide de deux plate-formes d'innovation afin d'améliorer le système semencier du palmier à huile. Un processus d'enquêtes a été utilisé pour documenter, évaluer et analyser ces interventions. Les expérimentations institutionnelles ont induit divers changements dans les relations de pouvoir interpersonnel et inter-organisationnel, facilitant un apprentissage mutuel et une co-construction entre les acteurs de la filière palmier à huile. Les plate-formes d'innovation ont entraîné un changement institutionnel dans les habitudes, les technologies et les pratiques, qui ont en outre amélioré la probité du système semencier. Les pépiniéristes doivent à présent être formés, enregistrés et autorisés par les communes. Ces acquis ont ensuite été discutés avec les décideurs politiques locaux et nationaux en utilisant les réseaux des membres des plate-formes d'innovation. L'amélioration du système semencier du palmier à huile a ainsi été incluse dans le dernier plan de développement quinquennal du gouvernement.Mots clés : renforcement institutionnel / innovation / exploitation agricole / système semencier / palmier à huile / Bénin

Innovation platforms and projects to support smallholder development - experiences from Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Vissoh et al (2016), Sidibé et al, and Triomphe et al (2016), in this issue, demonstrate how the determinants of innovation depend in part on strategic response to evolving relationships and in part on navigating changes in direction as the socio-political space for innovation (the dispositif) and contextual circumstances change. Thus our second proposition is that innovation programmes benefit from companionate leadership built on trust generated by shared action, and that combines creativity, distributed responsibility, and nurturing of inter-personal relationships that endure over time.…”

“…This paper offers both substantive insights into a range of innovation processes and interventions as well as an analytic procedure for comparing and contrasting innovation experiences. A series of country-based analyses follow that focus on the role of Innovation Platforms in catalysing institutional changes that allow smallholders to benefit from socio-technical opportunities, beginning with Vissoh et al (2016) on an IP for improving the integrity of the oil palm seed system. Ouologuem et al and Soumano and Traoré then examine the contributions of IPs in the Office du Niger in Mali, the former focussing on the integration of crop-livestock interests and the latter on improving water management and the position of tenants at the tertiary canal level.…”