Envisioning futures of African agriculture

Concern about the future of agriculture, particularly in Africa, has mounted again in recent years. This paper reviews applications of innovative methods for planning for the future – including scenario planning, future search, search conference, appreciative inquiry, and open space technology – and notes some limitations. Pro-poor planning for the future requires contextualising recent concerns within broader research about time, society and power, which emphasises that visions of the future are socially constructed, and hence inseparable from contemporary politics.