System Innovation: Root and branch revolutions?

When people partner up and support each other they can forge an entirely new system – much as they did in past millennia

Agriculture was humanity’s first revolution. Around 12,000 years ago, small bands of hunter gatherers coalesced into larger better-fed communities in the Eastern Mediterranean. Those small farming communities grew into cities, nations and empires, vying for power, rising and falling in turn. The invention of the plow was a catalyst, but the pivotal moment was the mass change of mindset – that another way of life was not only desirable, but actually possible. “We can do this,” said our ancestors. And they did. But it was always about the community as much as the crop.

That revolution can also be called a “system innovation” because people partnered up and intensively supported each other with new skills and tools while forging a new direction. When humanity put down roots, the system changed. Which in many ways is the goal of the UN 2030 Agenda, as the international community attempts to transition to a new way of living in a more sustainable global system. That “We can do this” statement has, however, shifted to “Can we do this?” – because although our capacities are infinitely greater, global conditions are far more complex and deteriorating fast.

A recent snapshot of partnership building comes in the form of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Decision 3/27, adopted in Sharm El-Sheikh in November 2022. A decision that aims at: “Promoting a holistic approach to addressing issues related to agriculture and food security... Enhancing coherence, synergies, coordination, communication and interaction between Parties... strengthening engagement, collaboration and partnerships among national, regional and international organizations and other relevant stakeholders.” Truly a lockstep text, with nine different synonyms for seeking alignment to support one another; encouraging a disparate group to be more than the sum of its parts. All that glitters

The fact remains that many people, even in government, see the word “innovation” and assume that new technology can be a silver bullet. This is missing the point, according to Andy Hall of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), because “the game changer is not new technology per se but the capacity of systems to innovate”. In other words: Promoting a progressive mindset backed up by a dedicated administrative and technological framework in order to “graduate” to a more advanced and sustainable way of life. Hall puts that in context: “Government policies have historically sought technological fixes to solve our sustainability problems, including greenhouse gas emissions.

But the truth is that technological change can only happen if it’s based on a much broader set of adaptations or innovations, which are largely still missing. These adaptations range from creating different forms of partnerships and infrastructure to putting a value on emissions in economic, policy and regulatory terms. In fact, the sustainability agenda has forced us to think not just about innovation as a good thing per se, but as something that needs to be supported and purposefully directed.”

The question of support and direction explains why some countries are able to harness innovation while others fail, despite throwing considerable resources into the mix. Hall points to The Innovation Paradox, a World Bank book from 2017 about “the situation of various emerging economies, which have a global pool of advanced technology that they could be accessing to leapfrog over other countries and secure economic growth – but for some reason they’re not. The reason is that there’s a series of missing capabilities and capacities within their systems. Governments try to get businesses to invest in innovation, but very often as soon as they step away, the pilots fall apart because the broader institutional environment to support innovation is missing. Simply put: If countries don’t have the capability to manage technological change and set the framework conditions, their efforts will be wasted.”

That view is echoed by Ijeoma Emenanjo, Country Manager for West and Central Africa, Public Sector Operations at the OPEC Fund, who previously worked for the World Bank across various parts of Africa and Asia. Drawing a direct comparison, he says: “Southeast Asia is in many ways around 20 years ahead of sub-Saharan Africa in terms of development. But if you look back to the 1960s, you’ll see that Malaysia, Indonesia, even Singapore had similar human development index scores as many African countries. I’ve spent a lot of time studying how and why many of these Southeast Asian countries transitioned ahead of their African counterparts. Bringing those lessons to my work in Africa is what I’ve done for most of my career.

“The first project that I worked on in Indonesia was the multipurpose Jatiluhur Dam, an irrigation scheme in West Java. The reservoir helps irrigate almost 250,000 hectares of rice fields, which is more than 10-20 times the size of average irrigation projects in Africa. By contrast, the first project I did in the Zambezi area was 10,000 hectares. So, I aimed to bring not only larger irrigation systems but a new mindset on the importance of these systems over rainfed agriculture to Zambia and other countries across Southern Africa. Clearly, a lot of development is about changing mindsets, convincing people that change for the better is possible.”

Against that backdrop, system innovation in the developing world can also be understood as helping countries and continents to learn from each other. To see what is possible in similar development contexts. To put a premium not only on South-South cooperation for its own sake, but on mutually supportive system innovation.

Going deeper, a recent report coauthored by Hall features several case studies, including new approaches to irrigation in Bangladesh (see box on page 14) and sustainable food production in Australia (see box below). Both studies capture the gear-like components of system innovation, including the importance of entrepreneurship, the leveraging of new technologies and the mutually supportive interplay between public and private sector, amid societal “revolutions”. The first case study also provides an early insight into the circular economy — as the new system involved not only the sale of pumps but also their maintenance, repair and recycling.

Bangladesh: Mass marketing treadle pumps: an appropriate technology pathway to transformation

“The history of the case begins in the early 1980s and a programme led by an NGO, International Development Enterprises, to facilitate smallholder access to irrigation in Bangladesh. The NGO took proven manual pump technology and sought to facilitate the development of markets for manufacturing, retail, installation and maintenance of the pumps that would persist independently of project support.

“At the household level, significant production and income benefits were recorded from the relatively small investment required to purchase a pump, providing autonomy to small farmers on irrigation timing and amount, without the additional cost of fuel. The treadle pump is also said to have contributed to the restructuring and development of water markets in Bangladesh, challenging the established monopolies of large landholders in water access…

“The total donor investment of US$10 million is estimated to have leveraged an investment of US$40 million from smallholders and generated a net return of US$150 million a year. The NGO involved was somewhat unusual in that it was pioneering the delivery of products and services to the poor via a market mechanism. Having demonstrated the value of this inclusive innovation, local informal sector engineers copied the pumps, reverse engineering the design to produce low-cost versions, which quickly became popular. This led to the establishment of an integrated system of suppliers and repairers in rural areas. The public sector contributed by agreeing to remove subsidies from other small-scale pumps in the market that were discouraging the private sector from producing and supplying pumps.

“While this case is often presented as a technology narrative (over a million pumps were sold), the real transformation process was the way in which poor households were enabled to participate in water markets. Technology certainly helped, but there was a degree of serendipity in that it was introduced at a time of wider agrarian change in Bangladesh.”

Source: Hall, A. and Dijkman, J. 2019. Public Agricultural Research in an Era of Transformation: The Challenge of Agri-Food System Innovation. Rome and Canberra: CGIAR Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC) Secretariat and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO); pp.29, 32

Australia: Sundrop farms: sustainability pioneers in the Australian food system

“In 2012, Sundrop Farms, a UK-based agri-business with operations in Australia, Portugal and the United States, developed and patented a system of greenhouse crop production that does not depend on fossil fuels, arable land and fresh water resources. The company estimates total annual cost savings at between 5 and 15 percent compared with fossil-fuel-powered glasshouses.

“Reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, fresh water and diesel fuel use are estimated to amount to 26,000 tonnes, 450 million litres, and 2 million litres, respectively. The Sundrop Farms System™ integrates established technologies from across the world (solar thermal systems, greenhouse design, hydroponic systems, vertical farming, desalination technology, etc.) in a novel form. The company received considerable venture capital support and government investment in Australia. It notably signed a 10-year contract with one of Australia’s major supermarket chains to supply all of its tomatoes.

“The role a sustainability pioneer like Sundrop plays in the transition is that it helps demonstrate a sustainable alternative and provides evidence that such an alternative can benefit different value chain actors, including consumers. This is typical of the sorts of activity that emerge in the early take-off phase of transition and that help create societal and political awareness of new directions. While this example is private sector-led, it received significant public support.”

Profile: Andy Hall

Andy Hall is a Senior Research Scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Canberra, Australia. He is a science and technology policy analyst with a specialization in the study and design of agriculture innovation processes, policies and practices. He holds a PhD in Science and Technology Policy Studies from the University of Sussex, UK.