Considering the challenges on sustainable agriculture in the district, different institutions join hands to overcome these issues and respond to the felt need of working more integrative both in the agricultural sector and environmental knowledge system. Adding a sense of urgency due to COVID-19 into problem analysis, these institutions accelerated the ambition to develop a Digital Farmer Field School (DFFS). This paper elaborates on the co-construction of principles for the design of a Digital Farmer Field School (DFFS) by the local stakeholders in Enrekang district. The local design team design of the DFFS Enrekang is composed of a transdisciplinary team from relevant government institutions and research institutions. The design principles of DFFS are built around inclusive design principles, concepts of interface usability based on different type of access to digital technology models, responsible innovation criteria and learning principles of farmer field school (FFS). The DFFS Enrekang design principles serve as guiding principles and shared value among the collaborating institutions to combine ambition, inspiration, and accountability in the DFFS management and development processes. This tablet based digital learning platform aims to provide an alternative for farmers to access information on sustainable agricultural and environmental practices.
MULTIFILE
Societal actors across scales and geographies increasingly demand visual applications of systems thinking – the process of understanding and changing the reality of a system by considering its whole set of interdependencies – to address complex problems affecting food and agriculture. Yet, despite the wide offer of systems mapping tools, there is still little guidance for managers, policy-makers, civil society and changemakers in food and agriculture on how to choose, combine and use these tools on the basis of a sufficiently deep understanding of socio-ecological systems. Unfortunately, actors seeking to address complex problems with inadequate understandings of systems often have limited influence on the socio-ecological systems they inhabit, and sometimes even generate unintended negative consequences. Hence, we first review, discuss and exemplify seven key features of systems that should be – but rarely have been – incorporated in strategic decisions in the agri-food sector: interdependency, level-multiplicity, dynamism, path dependency, self-organization, non-linearity and complex causality. Second, on the basis of these features, we propose a collective process to systems mapping that grounds on the notion that the configuration of problems (i.e., how multiple issues entangle with each other) and the configuration of actors (i.e., how multiple actors relate to each other and share resources) represent two sides of the same coin. Third, we provide implications for societal actors - including decision-makers, trainers and facilitators - using systems mapping to trigger or accelerate systems change in five purposive ways: targeting multiple goals; generating ripple effects; mitigating unintended consequences; tackling systemic constraints, and collaborating with unconventional partners.
MULTIFILE
The Collaborative Innovation and Entrepreneurship professorship focuses on the collaborative paradigm in economic transformation - the ways diverse organizations in globalvalue chains innovate and act in partnerships to address ecological and social grand challenges. Collaboration with multiple and diverse stakeholders is complex and challenging. Stakeholders have different interests, may compete with each other, or are just not ready to move as fast or as radically as others. Yet, we know that grand challenges are too complex and systemic for any one organization to address alone. Business leaders have an important role to play in transforming economic ecosystems and catalysing change among stakeholders and industry actors. They must move from linear thinking, where sustainability is a market for green or social products, to circular and inclusive thinking, where regeneration of natural ecosystems occurs and economic profits are equally distributed.The Collaborative Innovation and Entrepreneurship professorship aims to contribute knowledge, support organizations, and facilitate learning about collaborative organizational forms and practices - what we call collaborative organizing - for a more sustainable, regenerative and thriving 21st century economic system.
