Producing policy change: Innovation in the agriculture sector

Innovation in the agriculture sector is critical to achieving the necessary growth in production in an environmentally sustainable way. But change does not come easily—especially policy change. This event explores how knowledge, policy and practice interact during the policy-making process with a focus on innovation systems and the agriculture sector. Bringing together academics, policy-makers and development practitioners, the event will be part presentation and part open discussion.

Andrew Barnett, Director of the Policy Practice will share lessons from his experience influencing policies for innovative systems. Karim Hussein of IFAD will speak on his work with the Scouting and Sharing Innovation initiative. Ann Waters-Bayer of Prolinnova will focus on her work with local innovation support fund activities. These presentations will be followed by a more general discussion of the complexities of agriculture sector policy-making and how they compare to other sectors.

This event is the first in the series, The politics of policy-making: Thinking cross-sectorally. This series, for which ODI has teamed up with RIU, EADI, DSA and IDS, explores the policy-making process in various sectors across the development field. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the unevenness of policy-making and knowledge use across sectors and how these differences can be best used to more effectively influence evidence-based policy.