We face a global food crisis of many dimensions. Food prices for the poor are rising and volatile. About a billion people are chronically hungry. Most shocking of all, 1 in 3 children under the age of five are seriously malnourished and will grow up physically and mentally stunted. At the same time, some two billion people are
overweight or obese. Furthermore, we have to feed a growing world population demanding more varied and nutritious diets, including a wide range of livestock products. We will have to produce more food, but on more or less the same amount of land and with the same amount of water. Smallholders in Asia and Africa are affected by increasingly complex national and global ecological and economic changes. Agricultural innovation and technology shifts are critical among these forces of change and integration with services is increasingly facilitated through innovations in institutions. Here we focus mainly on innovation opportunities for small farmers, with a particular emphasis on marginalized small farm communities.