This document examines the role of agricultural advisory services among innovation support services in Madagascar. It analyzes data from interviews with 115 organizations providing innovation support and characterizes 315 total support services. The results show advisory services, particularly technical advice and capacity building, predominantly make up the overall offer of innovation support services. However, supporting innovation requires a diversity of organization types and strategies, including specialization in advisory services, combining advisory with other supports, or collaborating to provide complementary services. Agricultural advisory is thus one important but not sole component of the complex system supporting agricultural innovation.

1. 1.INTRODUCTION
❑ Agricultural advisory services play a major role in supporting innovation
processes, particularly in developing countries.
❑ However, innovation requires a variety of forms of support, called
innovation support services (ISS) (Kilelu et al 2014, Faure et al 2019).
We examined the role of agricultural advisory services in relation to the
diversity of organisations and activities to support innovation.
2. METHODOLOGY
❑ We used the ISS typology (table 1), and a typology of ISS providers (table 2).
Table 1. Typology of innovation support services (adapted from Faure et al 2019)
❑ We focused the study in four geographic regions of the Highlands of
Madagascar, encompassing similar biophysical assets.
❑ We interviewed 115 resources persons from the main organizations
(n=100) acting as providers of ISS. A total number of 315 ISS were
characterized.
❑ Data was processed through descriptive analysis and contingent tables.
❑ Some types of organisation do not provide any technical advice, particularly
private sector (when specialized into other ISS), research or public
organisation.
❑ Small part of public organisations and NGOs are specialized into technical
advice, otherwise many other organisations (and 100% of farmers’
organisation) combine technical advice with other type of ISS.
❑ However most organisations do not provide any capcacity building ISS, except
for farmers’ organisations and R&D projects.
❑ Farmers organisations are the main organisations providing capacity building
and technical advices. These supports to innovation are more internalised
and integrated than the other supports.
Table 2. Share of organizations that provide technical advisory services and
capacity building services along with other types of ISS.
Table 2. Share of organizations that provide technical advisory services and
capacity building services along with other types of ISS.
CONCLUSION
Our results demonstrate the plurality of organizations that
contribute to support agricultural and agrifood innovations, while
technical advisory services are still predominant within the total offer of
ISS. This highlights the diverse strategies of organisations regarding their
way to support innovation : a specialization in advisory services, a
combination with other ISS or a collaboration with other organizations
able to complement their offer of ISS.
These three strategies emphasizes the role of advisors as one piece – and
not the sole one - of the complex puzzle of activities to support
agricultural innovation, and the need to reflect on the whole picture of ISS.
Acknowledgements The present work was funded by the Leap-Agri funds, SERVInnov Project (no. LEAP-AGRI-273). The authors gratefully
acknowledge the interviewees (farmers, representatives of farmers organisations, advisory and extension agents, researchers, NGOs, private sector and government
representatives) for devoting their time and for sharing their knowledge.
Which place of agricultural advisory services among innovation support
services in Madagascar?
Sarah Audouin1,2,3, Patrick Dugué2, Narilala Randrianarisona4, Hycenth Tim Ndah5, Tovo Ratsimbazafy7,
Harilala Andriamaniraka4, Edson Samuel Noharinjanaharya4, Noroseheno Ralisoa8,Syndhia Mathé2,6
1 CIRAD, UMR Innovation, BP 319, Antsirabe 110, Madagascar
2 UMR Innovation, Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, INRAE, Montpellier SupAgro, Montpellier, France
3 Centre National de Recherche Appliquée au Développement Rural (FOFIFA), SRR, BP 230, Antsirabe, Madagascar
4 Université d’Antananarivo, École Supérieure des Sciences Agronomiques (ESSA), Antananarivo, Madagascar
5 University of Hohenheim, Institute of Social Sciences in Agriculture, Division of Rural Sociology, Stuttgart, Germany
6 CIRAD, UMR Innovation, PO box CT 519, Accra, Ghana
7 FIFATA (FIkambananaFAmpivoarananyTAntsaha, Association pour le progrès des paysans), Antsirabe, Madagascar
8 FCA (Forum du conseil agricole), Antananarivo, Madagascar
Extracts from the published article (Open Access)
Audouin S, et al. 2021. Quelle place du conseil agricole dans
les services support à l’innovation à Madagascar ? Cahiers
Agricultures. 30: 29. https://doi.org/10.1051/cagri/2021017
Type of ISS Examples of ISS
Awareness and exchange of
knowledge
information dissemination forums,
meetings
Advisory, consultancy (technical
and capacity building)
Technical training, demonstrations, exchange
visits, capacity building training, experiential
learning processes
Demand articulation marketing support, contract farming
Networks, facilitation, and
brokerage
Activities to help organise or strengthen
relationships between actors (innovation fairs)
Enhancing access to resources Intermediation to get inputs, equipment, credit,
subsidies, grants, loans
Institutional support and scaling
Mechanisms
incubators, infrastructures, design and
enforcement of norms, rules, funding
mechanisms, taxes, subsidies, etc.
REFERENCES
• Faure, G., Knierim, A., Koutsouris, A., Ndah, H.T., Audouin, S., Zarokosta, E.,
Wielinga, E., Triomphe, B., Mathé, S., Temple, L., Heanue, K., 2019. How to
Strengthen Innovation Support Services in Agriculture with Regard to Multi-
Stakeholder Approaches. Journal of Innovation Economics & Management 28,
145–169.
• Kilelu CW, Klerkx L, Leeuwis C. 2014. How dynamics of learning are linked to
innovation support services: Insights from a smallholder commercialization project
in Kenya. The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension 20(2): 1–20.
Type of ISS
provider
No technical
advice
(%)
technical
advice no
other ISS
(%)
technical
advice +
other ISS
(%)
no capacity
building
(%)
capacity
building +
no other ISS
(%)
capacity
building +
technical
advice (%)
Public
organisation
48 14 38 97 0 0
research
organisation
40 0 60 80 0 20
NGO,
association
27 13 60 80 0 13
private
sector
64 0 36 89 0 4
Farmers’
organisation
0 0 100 33 0 67
R&D project 18 6 76 59 0 18
3.RESULTS
Advisory ISS
(technical
and capacity building)
predomines the offer
of ISS (fig1.).
Figure 1. Portfolio of the offer of ISS