Uza. It is crucial to enhance knowledge and innovation competencies and skills to accelerate the sustainable and digital transition in agriculture, forestry, and rural areas.

Knowledge and innovation are essential to address global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and food security. Strengthening the Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS) at national, regional, and local levels is vital to bridging the gap between research, services, and practice, ensuring that innovation is co-generated, and adding value in local contexts. The Ministry of Agriculture mandated FAO to support AKIS decentralized centers in the Fergana valley.

In this regard, from 11 to 13 September 2023, the Training Workshop and Regional AKIS Dialogue was held in Fergana, Uzbekistan, under the scope of the FAO project “Preparing the grounds for the digital transformation of agriculture”. The event brought together Fergana, Namangan, and Andijan AKIS center technical personnel and representatives from research, academia, the private sector, government representatives and authorities, farmers, civil society associations, and FAO project members from the valley.

The workshop covered AKIS concepts and approaches, governance, and innovative strategy formulation. It also focused on communication, knowledge-sharing, and management aspects and enabled the preparation of a communication and knowledge-sharing roadmap supporting the regional AKIS strategy.

“In FAO Office of Innovation, we innovate every day. Through the FAO training on Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System, piloted in Fergana valley in Uzbekistan, we harnessed new methodologies based on evidence, foresight, and collective intelligence, such as innovation policy lab for AKIS strategic planning, innovation brokerage, and local, small-scale farmer-centered living labs. Equipped with these innovative tools and skills, the regional AKIS actors established a regional AKIS group for the valley, coordinated by the regional AKIS center, and prepared their regional AKIS strategy”, says Nevena Alexandrova, FAO Agricultural Extension Officer.

The workshop has been interactive, enabling working groups to contribute to developing the AKIS strategy and its communication and knowledge-sharing roadmap.

“As knowledge is at the core of the agricultural knowledge and innovation system, we zoomed in on the regional AKIS strategy of the Fergana valley to improve the connections among the actors from regional to mahalla level. According to the assessment, sharing videos among the various actors is the preferred way to exchange. This is why FAO will offer two online training modules on participatory video. The first module will run from 23 to 31 October and the second from 6 to 16 November”, Sophie Treinen, FAO Communication for Development Officer, informed.

As Sophie Treinen mentioned, the Beekeeping and Pollination living labs in Fergana valley are preparing several videos to explain and demonstrate pollination’s importance for fruit trees and cotton. The Novkent Living Lab will focus on water issues. The results will be shared in the planned Lessons Learned Workshop at the end of November 2023.