ICT and social media as drivers of multi-actor innovation in agriculture

Abstract

Innovation occurs as a result of the creativity and interplay between actors combining new and/orexisting (tacit) knowledge. As input to a report on agricultural knowledge and innovationsystems (EU SCAR, 2013), we analyzed the use of social media and other information andcommunication technologies (ICT) tools as drivers of innovation in agriculture and other sectors.We found, that there is a great potential for using existing social software tools and platforms forcommunication, interaction, knowledge sharing, preservation of information and as suchstimulate multi-actor innovation. Apart from a few exceptions, our review of social softwaresystems revealed that agriculture as a sector to some extent has adopted the general socialsoftware programs as tools for networking and knowledge sharing, but the potential to use it forcrowdsourcing and cooperation or as a supplement to face-to-face interactions has not yet beenexploited.