A recent study undertaken in the Maldives investigated agricultural stakeholders’ views on capacity building towards sustainable agriculture. In this study, the views of 373 stakeholders were analysed and coded. Ten codes emerged from the data analysis, two of which are the subject for discussion in this paper. The first of the two codes examined stakeholders’ understanding of the term ‘sustainable agriculture’ and, the second code examined understanding of the term ‘building capacity in agriculture’. The two codes revealed a converging view amongst farmers that agricultural sustainability was inextricably linked to profitability. This was underpinned by increased production capacity fuelled by enhanced access to inputs and markets. Farmers further noted that the best vehicle through which capacity building towards profitability could be achieved was that of individualistic farming activity, either as sole farmers or family farming units. Conversely, the study noted that institutional agricultural capacity building interventions had a softer focus on profitability. Such interventions generally concentrated on improving islanders’ livelihoods and building food security through the establishment of collective producer and marketing cooperatives. This paper examines why intervention slippages occurred and suggests their recalibration in favour of assisting individualistic farming units in building capacity towards profitability and agricultural sustainability.

The CDAIS project was designed to strengthen TAP through the development of a common framework for Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation Systems (CD for AIS) which sets concepts and guidance for the promotion of agricultural innovation system (AIS) thinking and collaborative learning, and for the strengthening of capacities for AIS in tropical countries. The project tested this common framework (or so-called ‘TAP CF’) in eight pilot countries,1 offering a variety of situations across three continents. A transversal analysis of the project outcomes therefore intended to ‘validate’ the common framework, meaning to verify hypotheses underpinning the TAP CF and to verify how changes happened in the eight countries in relation with the mode of operationalization of the TAP CF by the CDAIS project. In other words, the transversal analysis sought to understand how the project produced outcomes, what these outcomes were in each country, so as to propose recommendations for upgrading the TAP Common Framework across its theoretical and practical dimensions.