Innovation Systems, Institutional Change and the New Knowledge Market: Implications for Third World Agricultural Development

This paper uses a simplified version of classical information theory to improve understanding of the dynamic potential of innovation systems in developing countries with a special focus on issues of agricultural poverty. Using examples drawn from emergent knowledge markets in industrialised countries, the paper suggests that such an analytical approach focuses attention directly on the types of institutional reforms necessary to improve the effectiveness of Third World agricultural R&D. Contrast is made with more conventional approaches that take institutional structures as given and focus more on factors such as price regimes, policy weaknesses and political will. The paper argues that so great now are the problems in this area (particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa) that there is a clear need for institutional reform to accompany relevant technological changes. In the absence of such reform innovative (and hence economic) potential is likely to be compromised