Endogenous Technological Innovation for Sustainable Development: The Case of Agriculture Pest Management

With growing pressure from environmental movements, governments are being forced to rethink policies from the view-point for Sustainable Development (SD). SD would enable societies/communities to maintain if not augment the very natural base on which they subsist. The costs of such development would not be externalized either over time or nature. The transition to SD calls for (a) supply of technological, institutional and cultural innovations and (b) suitable policy that would draw upon these innovations while facilitating the emergence of further innovation. Certain characteristics of SD innovations set them apart from conventional ones: a) they tend to be location specific b) they tend to rely on internal resources c) they generate minimal or zero environmental externalities and d) they incorporate concern for future generations and therefore require a longer time – frame for evaluation. Location specific technology may have limited scope for diffusion. However the science behind the technology can be diffused over large areas, allowing people in different locations to evolve innovative solutions specific to their own socio-ecological conditions. These differences from conventional innovations imply that the nature of policy support needed will also be different. A theory on innovations for SD would be instrumental in a) providing criteria for screening of SD innovations and b) determining the mix of policy activities needed to support them. The literature on theory of innovations has focused mainly on exogenous innovations which rely on exogenous knowledge systems and supply of external resources. In the process innovation theories such as Theory of Induced Innovation etc. have tended to neglect autonomous, endogenous innovation occurring at grassroots level. This study aims at achieving an understanding of heuristics used by grassroot innovators, through study of technological innovations for SD, in the context of agricultural pest management. Institutional and cultural innovations will be included only when they are found in association with the technological innovations being studied. The innovators will be studied at three levels a) innovation b) innovator c) early user and/or early discontinuer. A multiple case study method will be adopted. Innovations will be selected on the basis of sustainability criteria. Informal and iterative interview method will be used to develop case studies. The case studies are expected to illuminate the heuristics used by SD innovators as well as the key variables that influence their evolution and use. Key variables include contextual variables (ecological, economic, social) and personal variables (knowledge base, value system). The interrelationship between heuristics and key variables would form the basis of a theory of innovation for SD. A major contribution of this study will be to make possible the discrimination of heuristics for innovation on the basis of sustainability criteria. However the insights gained would help in remodeling not just policy support for innovation, but also in strengthening capabilities of grassroot innovators, voluntary groups and academic activists.