For further information contact: ciat-library@cgiar.org

[Foreword] [Beans: Africa] [Beans: Latin America] [Cassava] [Forages]
[Rice: Latin America] [Savannas] [General] [Author Index]

Foreword

The generation of technologies that meet the needs of users is a necessary condition for the success of agricultural research. Only if farmers use the technologies developed through agricultural research, can research make an ultimate impact on the key goals of poverty alleviation, conservation of natural resources, and food security. Since not all outputs from research do indeed fully meet the needs of users, ongoing assessment of the use and impact of research provides crucial information.

Studies of the use and impact of the innovations developed by research document those cases where adoption and impact are achieved. This information constitutes valuable feedback which confirms to investors in research that their investment is paying off and should be continued.

Frequently, though, innovations may achieve widespread adoption and impact, but not meet the needs of all farmers. In such cases, studies of adoption and impact can supply crucial information on the patterns of adoption, identifying who is by-passed by an innovation. Understanding who non-adopters are, and why they don't adopt, can reorient research so that it produces modified innovations that better meet their needs or put into place other key services that enable them to adopt, like seed supply or extension.

For more than 2 decades CIAT has been interested in these issues. We have actively conducted research, principally through field studies carried out in collaboration with NARS. This research has produced a variety of insights on how to improve the innovations being developed through agricultural research or how to improve the diffusion of innovations. In addition, there is compelling evidence that many poor farmers in the low income tropical countries have benefited from innovations derived from agricultural research.

To make the results of these many studies more widely accessible, the attached collection of abstracts has been published. Copies of the complete studies can be obtained through the CIAT Information and Documentation Unit.

In the future CIAT, together with its research partners, will be conducting further studies on the impact of innovations. New approaches are being developed to better understand impacts of innovations on the natural resource base. Greater attention will be placed on the distribution of benefits with particular emphasis on the poor and females. Thus, the assessment of the impact of agricultural research is an ongoing and important part of CIAT's research portfolio.

Douglas Pachico
Director, Strategic Planning, CIAT