About Governance of Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System – The Case of Bulgaria - part I

This paper examines the governance, efficiency, and development of the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS) in Bulgaria. The Governance of AKIS includes diverse governing agents, a variety of rules, mechanisms and modes for agents, and the process of governing, and the outcome (specific order and efficiency) of the governance. First, participants in the country’s AKIS and the type of their relations are specified. The study is based on available data from statistical sources, official reports, fields surveys as well as assessments of a panel of leading experts in the area and stakeholders’ representatives. The study has found out that AKIS of the country consists of diverse and numerous organizations, for which activities and complex relations have no sufficient official or other reliable information. Bulgarian AKIS demonstrates low resource endowment and efficiency, domination of outdated public institutions and undeveloped private sector, insufficient sharing of knowledge and innovations, slow and uneven application of modern technologies, varieties, production and management methods, digitalization, etc. in different types of farms, subsectors of agriculture and regions of the country.