Hi Daniel, thanks for raising such a challenging and interesting topic. M&E is a very "bitter" work because it requires to be planned in advance (at the moment when the rest of the team, when there is a complete team, is impatient to start the work in the field), requires to have clarity about the causes and effects (so, a convincing Theory of Change), to ellaborate it with a participatory methodology, and then measure, and just then start to have results that can be analyzed and (hopefully) to have enough material as to do evaluation. 

Purely "agricultural production" projects have better chances to carry on sound evaluations and arrive to meaninful results. "Development" projects have broader challenges, and Theory of Change usually is more complex. Here it is more important the have the real participation of all the actors involved in the development process. However, there is a trade-off between "the perfect" and "the possible" M&E system. Here the participation of all the relevant stakeholders can be a good way to find possible + useful M&E system.