Overview of barriers and successes to transfer of agricultural technology
Amer Fayad: Virginia Tech
<div><span>Access to information and to agricultural technology remains a major limitation for growers and smallholder farmers to achieve food security, especially in the developing world. The Integrated Pest Management Innovation Lab (IPM IL), a USAID funded program managed by Virginia Tech, </span>improves the livelihoods of smallholder farmers by increasing crop production, nutrition, health, income, and food security. The program develops and disseminates IPM packages for cereal, fruit, legume, and high value vegetable crops. Based on two decades of experience in the developing world, the program <span>has been progressively successful in identifying and overcoming the challenges to technology transfer by collaborating with local scientists, extension services, NGOs, value chain projects, and other organizations, using all available paths to reach farmers in a given country. Farmers’ access to agricultural technologies, such as biopesticides, remains a major constraint to the widespread adoption of IPM. In Nepal, the IPM IL collaborated with Agrovets to promote knowledge about the use and benefits of botanicals and biopesticides and access to agricultural technologies, including IPM components. The IPM IL also trained private entrepreneurs on production and quality control of biopesticides to encourage the production of these products. This strategy resulted in development of a market for IPM products, privatization of IPM technologies, and a sustainable technology transfer in Nepal.</span></div>
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