Entrepreneurship

fIvE PRINCIPlES of INNovaTIoN
These five principles can help farmers take advan-
tage of a new innovation:
•  Know what the innovation does and how it works.
•  Analyse the opportunity to see if people will be 
interested in using the innovation.
•  Effective innovations are simple and focus on a 
specific need or opportunity.
•  Effective innovations start small. Focus on a 
small, limited market, with a product requiring 
little money and few people to produce and sell 
it. As the market grows, fine-tune its processes 
and stay ahead of the emerging competition.
•  Aim at leading the market from the beginning. 
An innovation that aims at leading the market 
(e.g. dominating a small specialised market) is 
more likely to be successful.
Reference: Adapted from Drucker (1985), Innovative and Entrepreneurship, 
Practice and Principles. Harper & Row Publishers.
Farmers may need 
to develop or adopt 
new technologies and 
practices in order to 
cut costs and increase 
efficiency.
Extension workers  
can facilitate 
farmer-farmer and 
farmer-research