Building farmer innovation capability

Lack of adoption of agricultural technologies and practices by farmers has historically been a significant problem. In order to stay competitive farmers increasingly need to undergo rapid transformation.

This project began the refinement of a partnership approach which builds the long term capability of farmers, through farmer groups, to lead the innovation process from ideation through to commercialisation and adoption. Farmers are most likely to adopt the technologies and practices that they initiate or develop.

The project trained an innovation manager within each participating farmer group on how to design and implement an innovation system. They were also trained on how to support farmer members to build their capability to develop innovative soil management technologies and practices specific to their farms and management systems.

Initially, the project built the capacity of four Soil CRC farmer groups to implement innovation systems that focus on soil management. The longer term vision for this project was to roll out this innovation capability partnership model to other Soil CRC farmer groups and agribusinesses and beyond.