1 - 3 of 3
Number of results to display per page
Search Results
2. Geosystems' pathways to the future of sustainability
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Voda, Mihai (author), Kithiia, Shadrack (author), Jackiewicz, Edward (author), Du, Qingyun (author), and Sarpe, Constantin Adrian (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2019
- Published:
- International
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12087
- Journal Title:
- Scientific Reports
- Journal Title Details:
- 9 : 14446
- Notes:
- Online from journal by open access. 11 pages., Researchers attempted to show the effectiveness of Geomedia techniques in the Geosystems identification, evaluation, and valorization processes for the benefit of local inhabitants. The Geomedia techniques were developed with local community members in Romania, Kenya, Bolivia, India, and Indonesia. "The results demonstrate that self-sustainable Geosystems will always be capable to regulate, control and assess progress towards their dynamic equilibrium state, continuously adapting to environmental and society changes."
3. How have smallholder farmers used digital extension tools? Developer and user voices from Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Coggins, Sam (author), McCampbell, Mariette (author), Sharma, Akriti (author), Sharma, Rama (author), Haefele, Stephen (author), Karki, Emma (author), Hetherington, Jack (author), Smith, Jeremy (author), and Brown, Brendan (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-03-01
- Published:
- United States: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12486
- Journal Title:
- Global Food Security
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 32
- Notes:
- 10 pages, Digital extension tools (DETs) include phone calls, WhatsApp groups and specialised smartphone applications used for agricultural knowledge brokering. We researched processes through which DETs have (and have not) been used by farmers and other extension actors in low- and middle-income countries. We interviewed 40 DET developers across 21 countries and 101 DET users in Bihar, India. We found DET use is commonly constrained by fifteen pitfalls (unawareness of DET, inaccessible device, inaccessible electricity, inaccessible mobile network, insensitive to digital illiteracy, insensitive to illiteracy, unfamiliar language, slow to access, hard to interpret, unengaging, insensitive to user's knowledge, insensitive to priorities, insensitive to socio-economic constraints, irrelevant to farm, distrust). These pitfalls partially explain why women, less educated and less wealthy farmers often use DETs less, as well as why user-driven DETs (e.g. phone calls and chat apps) are often used more than externally-driven DETs (e.g. specialised smartphone apps). Our second key finding was that users often made - not just found - DETs useful for themselves and others. This suggests the word ‘appropriation’ conceptualises DET use more accurately and helpfully than the word ‘adoption’. Our final key finding was that developers and users advocated almost ubiquitously for involving desired users in DET provision. We synthesise these findings in a one-page framework to help funders and developers facilitate more useable, useful and positively impactful DETs. Overall, we conclude developers increase DET use by recognizing users as fellow developers – either through collaborative design or by designing adaptable DETs that create room for user innovation.