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Agri-food systems innovation: Pathways to impact
Workshop
Background
CSIRO and the Secretariat of Independent Science and
Partnership and Council (ISPC) of the CGIAR have an on-
going collaboration to explore the nature of agri-food
system innovation, the role of research within this and
the way different types of innovation processes lead to
impact. The purpose of this initiative is to support a
wider collaborative process that helps the development
and application of explanatory principles, guidance, and
tools to improve the impact effectiveness of investments
in agri-food system innovation.
As a starting point, a case study-backed framework has
been developed that describes three modes of
innovation: incremental, radical, and transformational
(Figure 1, description below, and Table 1). Each of these
has distinct practices, partnerships, research
contributions, policy settings, and scale attributes.
Purpose of the framework
The framework provides an alternative explanation of the
way agri-food system innovation and impact occurs. This
could potentially open up new opportunities to tackle
critical issues in agri-food innovation systems in both
global and Australian agri-food sectors. However, its
intent is to scaffold a wider engagement with, and co-
development of solutions to these issues rather than to
provide a stand-alone answer.
Purpose of the workshop
The purpose of this meeting is to open up a conversation
on this topic, to draw in a wider set of perspectives, and
to explore collaboration opportunities. In particular the
meeting aims (i) to identify limitations and missed impact
opportunities of current agri-food innovation systems; (ii)
to explore the nature of frameworks and tools needed to
advance innovation and impact; and (iii) to develop a
road map on how these could be co-developed to best
meet the needs of different stakeholder groups.
The framework
Figure 1: Modes of Innovation and impact
Incremental Innovation or systems
optimisation
Key characteristics. Incremental improvement of existing
products and services or incremental improvement of
value chain efficiencies that deliver marginal social,
economic, and environmental impact in specific
production systems and value chains.
Key processes and enablers. Case studies illustrate the
way research helps develop incremental improvements
in existing farming systems and individual value chains.
These deliver valuable local improvements to livelihoods
of smallholders and profits for value chain actors.
Demand-led research and collaborative action by local
stakeholders are critical in defining and developing
solutions. The scale of impact, however, is often
restricted by the absence of policy, institutional and
market systems changes and investments needed to
spread and sustain these innovations
Radical innovation or sub-system
transformation
Key characteristics. Technological and/or market “step
changes” or discontinuities that open up new economic,
social and environmental impact opportunities in a
specific sub-sector or market sector and open up new
opportunities for incremental innovation.
CSIRO FOOD & AGRICULTURE AND THE CGIAR ISPC SECRETARIAT
www.csiro.au and www.ispc.cgiar.org
Key processes and enablers. Cases illustrate ways in
which new types of products and services (animal health
products, livestock insurance and novel agricultural
inputs) emerging from research organizations have
created step change improvements in specific sub-
sectors. Mission-focused research and novel forms of
public private sector partnership have provided new
solutions to generic sub-sector challenges, followed by
incremental innovations to improve impact effectiveness.
All cases demonstrate a degree of sub-sector
transformation including market disruption, collaboration
between the public and private sector to create delivery
and control systems, and infrastructure investment. All
cases also open up new economic and other value-added
opportunities, new incremental innovation opportunities
in production and marketing systems, and new
opportunities for the delivery of a wider range of
products and services through the establishment of new
delivery systems.
Transformative innovation or system
transformation
Key characteristics. Deep systems changes underpinned
by broad-based consensus that significantly advance the
economic, social, and environmental frontiers of the agri-
food sector as a whole, and that open up opportunities
for new waves of radical and incremental innovation.
Key processes and enablers. Case studies illustrate far-
reaching types of innovation with pervasive implications
for the entire agri-food sector. These cases are not
demand driven per se, but emerge from a broad-based
consensus on the need to pursue new directions or take
advantage of new platform technologies. In some cases,
the combination of policy-push, technical and
institutional responses, and innovation has extended the
frontiers of both profitability and sustainability of the
agri-food sector as a whole. The high-level stakeholder
and political alignment and the organizational
arrangements put in place to advance this transformation
have also been used to address other sustainability
challenges, notably fertilizer and pesticide run-off. Other
more nascent transformative cases associated with
advances in information technology suggest that a key
bottleneck is the lack of mechanisms to convene
stakeholders to achieve political alignment needed to
create a “joined up” approach to facilitate the economic,
social and environmental step changes that new
technology promises.
Observations across the case studies
1. Much of the received wisdom on innovation good
practice and its links to impact is evidenced in the
case studies: i) client orientation and involvement in
innovation processes; ii) various forms of
partnerships and alliances and the importance of
both public and private investment; and iii) the
importance of science, technology and research as
both initiators and enablers of innovation.
2. However the case studies also suggest that the
overriding ingredient in innovation processes that
have pervasive impact and lead to transformational
change do not relate to the fine-grained
arrangements involved in the innovation processes
per se (although these are critical implementation
strategies). Rather the main ingredient is macro
level alignment of public policy, private sector, and
often civil society objectives. This is particularly
important where larger societal issues such as
environmental protection, health, and nutritional
and food security are at stake.
3. Despite the critical role played by the private sector,
purposeful and proactive public investment is
evident in the radical and transformative modes of
innovation. This involves responding to market
failures through, for example, investing in research
that creates opportunities for the private sector
through commercialization. It also involves,
however, solving system failures through, for
example, investment in the creation of a mechanism
to bring industry, civil society, and research players
together to tackle systemic challenges.
4. The three modes of innovation discussed all have a
value in progressing equitable and sustainable
economic growth, albeit with different scales of
impact. These modes also highlight the way clusters
of policies, practices and stakeholder interests can
lock agriculture into incremental innovation and
system optimization at a time when step changes
are needed: although the precise nature of these
lock-in needs further exploration. One manifestation
of this is that public (but also industry body)
investments have given primacy to demand-led,
bottom-up processes and short-term impacts at the
farm scale, thus skewing the allocation of resources
towards this local optimization route at the expense
of investment in transformative changes.
Tables 1 summaries the critical features of the modes of
innovation described by the framework.
Table 1: Typologies of innovation modes
Incremental innovation Radical innovation Transformational
innovation
Paradigm innovation
Focus Systems optimization Sub-system
transformation
System transformation Systems replacement
Key
features
Continuous
improvement of existing
products and services in
current production
systems and value
chains
Technological and/or
market “step jumps” or
discontinuities that
enable the creation of
new products or
service but restricted
to a sub-sector or
existing market
segment
Deep systems changes
that significantly affect the
agricultural sector as a
whole enabling the
creation of new classes of
products and services
Paradigm changes that
potentially affect all
sectors of the economy
Impact
scope
Incrementally improves
social, economic and
environmental impact
with in system limits
Significantly expands
economic, social and
environmental impact
in a specific sub-sector
or existing market
segment
Unlocks new economic,
social and environmental
impact possibilities across
the agricultural sector
Reframed global limits to
growth
Trajectory Creates understanding
of technological and
system’s limits that
need to be addressed
Creates opportunities
for next wave of
incremental innovation
in agricultural sub-
sectors or market
segments
Creates opportunities for
next wave of radical and
incremental innovation in
the agricultural sector
Creates opportunities for
transformative, radical
and incremental
innovation in all economic
sectors
Defining
processes
and
practices
Demand-led priorities
setting and user led co-
creation of solutions
informed by research
coupled with
participatory processes
and governance
Alignment of business
and policy incentives
and agendas allows
commercialization of
technological
breakthroughs
addressing defined
problems and
opportunities
Public, private and civil
society’s alignment
around new directions to
tackle critical societal
issues involving
uncertainty and
complexity
Global uncertainty. The
search for unimagined
futures
Policy
framing
Science and technology Sub-sector innovation
policy
National Systems of
Innovation
Timeframes
/ phasing
Continuous Discontinuous events Periodic tipping points Epochs with shortening
cycles