Farmer First Revisited: Innovation for Agricultural Research and Development
Ian Scoones and John Thompson
ITDG Publishing (2008), 384 pages
ISBN 1 85339 682 3
£12.95

Agriculture is an urgent global priority and farmers find themselves in the front line of some of the world’s most pressing issues- climate change, globalization and food security. Twenty years ago, the Farmer First workshop held at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK, launched a movement to encourage farmer participation in agricultural reasearch and development (R & D), responding to farmers’ needs in complex, diverse, risk-prone environments, and promoting sustainable livelihoods and agriculture. Since that time, methodological, institutional and policy experiments have unfolded around the world.

Farmer First Revisited returns to the debates about farmer participation in agricultural R & D and looks to the future. With over 60 contributions from across the world, the book presents a range of experiences that highlight the importance of going beyond a focus on the farm to a wider innovation system, including market interactions as well as the wider institutional and policy environment. If, however, farmers are really to be put first, a politics of demand is required in order to shape the direction of these innovative systems. This is calls for a major rethinking of agricultural R & D, the boosting of the knowledge and capacities of farmers’ organizations to innovate, the strenghening of networks and alliances to support, document and share lessons on farmer-led innovation, and the transformation of agricultural higher education.