The Innovation Revolution in Agriculture

This open access book is an important reframing of the role of innovation in agriculture. Dr. Campos and his distinguished coauthors address the need for agriculture to feed a growing global population with a reduced environmental footprint while adapting to and mitigating the effects of changing climate. The authors expand the customary discussion of innovation in terms of supply driven R&D to focus on the returns to investors and most importantly, the value to end-users. This is brought to life by exploring effective business models and many cases from agricultural systems across the globe. The focus on converting the results of innovation in R&D into adoption by farmers and other end-users is its greatest contribution. Many lessons from the book can be applied to private and public sectors across an array of agricultural systems. This book will be of enormous value to agri-business professionals, NGO leaders, agricultural and development researchers and those funding innovation and agriculture across the private and public sectors.

Tony Cavalieri, Senior Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Hugo Campos, Ph.D., MBA, has 20+ years of international corporate and development experience. His distinguished coauthors represent a rich collection of successful innovation practice in industry, consultancy, international development and academy, in both developed and developing countries.”

Dr. Hugo Campos has over 25 years of international experience managing plant breeding and biotechnology programs in diverse tropical and temperate crop species, both in industry and in the international domain. He is currently the Director of Research at CIP, the International Potato Center and was previously the Head of Plant Breeding at CTC, the world’s largest private sugarcane research center. He has worked at Pioneer, a Dupont Company and Monsanto as a Research Fellow. While at Monsanto, he twice received the prestigious “Above and Beyond” award for outstanding achievements. Dr. Campos holds a BA in Agronomy from the Universidad Austral de Chile, Highest Honors, and a PhD from the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK. He is part of the editorial board of Tropical Plant Biology and a member of the Scientific Board of Verdant BioScience (Singapore). He has extensive experience lecturing on innovation, entrepreneurship and technology management at the MBA level in several universities in Latin America.