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2. Constraints to the utilisation of conservation agriculture in Africa as perceived by agricultural extension service providers
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Brown, Brendan (author), Nuberg, Ian (author), Llewellyn, Rick (author), and School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, The University of Adelaide CSIRO Agriculture
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018
- Published:
- Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 16 Document Number: D10460
- Journal Title:
- Land Use Policy
- Journal Title Details:
- 73: 331-340
- Notes:
- 10 pages., Via online journal., Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a knowledge-intensive set of practices which requires substantial access to functional agricultural extension services to enable utilisation. Despite this importance, the perspectives of those providing extension services to smallholder farmers have not been fully investigated. To address this, we qualitatively explore the perspectives of agricultural extension providers across six African countries to understand why uptake of CA has been limited, as well as the institutional changes that may be required to facilitate greater utilisation. Across the diversity of geographical, political and institutional contexts between countries, we find multiple commonalities in the constrained utilisation of CA by smallholder farmers, highlighting the difficulties non-mechanised subsistence farmers face in transitioning to market-oriented farming systems such as CA. The primary constraint relates to the economic viability of market-oriented farming where farmers remain in low input and low output systems with limited exit points. The assumed exit point used by CA programs appears to have led to a culture of financial expectancy and reflects a continuation of top-down extension approaches with inadequate modification of CA to the contextual realities of subsistence farmers. If African agricultural systems are to be sustainably intensified, we find a need for greater flexibility within extension systems in the pursuit of sustainable intensification. If extension systems are to persist with CA, it will need to be promoted through more transitional pathways that disaggregate the CA package, and with that there is a need for the provision of a mandate to, and necessary funding for, more participatory extension services.
3. Exploring Information Seeking Behavior of Farmers’ in Information Related to Climate Change Adaptation Through ICT (CHAI)
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Tumbo, Siza (author), Mwalukasa, Nicholaus (author), Fue, Kadeghe G. (author), and Mlozi, Malongo R. S. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018-07-01
- Published:
- International: Athabasca University Press
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D12413
- Journal Title:
- International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning
- Journal Title Details:
- Issue 19, Vol. 3
- Notes:
- 22 pages., In Tanzania, agriculture sector is known for employing more than 70% of the total population. Agriculture sector faces many challenges including climate change. Climate change causes low productivity in agriculture; low productivity is caused due to poor implementation of agricultural policies and strategies. This poor implementation of policies has also caused many farmers to be not competent in climate change adaptation. Over the years, provisions of agricultural advice and extension were provided by various approaches, including training and visit extension, participatory approaches, and farmers’ field schools. However, provision of agricultural advisory and extension service is inefficient. Also, in most cases the usage of most agricultural innovations and technologies developed is limited. A literature review indicates that the main reasons given by Tanzanian farmers for not using improved technology are not lack of knowledge or skill, but rather that the technologies do not contribute towards improvements (e.g., the technologies are not profitable or they imply to high risk). Thus, agricultural extension service needs to be geared towards teaching farmers how to develop innovative and cost effective technologies that are contextualized. Limited numbers of agricultural extension staff and less interactivity of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), such as radio and television, have been mentioned to be among the factors limiting the provision of agricultural advisory and extension services to the majority of farmers in Tanzania. The advancements in ICTs have brought new opportunities for enhancing access to agricultural advisory and extension service for climate change adaptation. In Tanzania, farmers and other actors access agricultural information from various sources such as agricultural extension workers and use of various databases from Internet Services Providers. Also there are different web – and mobile – based farmers’ advisory information systems to support conventional agricultural extension service. These systems are producing bulk amounts of data which makes it difficult for different stakeholders to make an informed decision after data analysis. This calls for the need to develop a tool for data visualization in order to understand hidden patterns from massive data. In this study, a semi-automated text classification was developed to determine the frequently asked keywords from a web and mobile based farmers’ advisory system called UshauriKilimo after being in use for more than 2 years by more than 700 farmers.
4. Information needs and information-seeking behaviors of urban food producers: implications for urban extension programs
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Kumudu P. P. Kopiyawattage (author), Laura A. Warner (author), and T. Grady Roberts (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018
- Published:
- USA: The American Association for Agricultural Education
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 149 Document Number: D10111
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Agricultural Education
- Journal Title Details:
- 59(3) : 229-242
- Notes:
- Via Online Journal, Extension is challenged with meeting the needs of a variety of stakeholders. As the country becomes more urban, Extension may need to adapt programming to reach new clients. Having an understanding about what, when, and how urban food producers gather information is important to address their needs. Information that is relevant, up-to-date, and meets clients’ needs, enables their ability to adopt new ideas and innovative technologies, providing more opportunities for success. A mixed-method research design explored the information needs and information-seeking behavior of urban food producers in Columbus, Ohio. Urban food producers in this study most needed information to increase food production. Respondents preferred to receive information from the Internet and other electronic media over conventional information sources. This group of urban producers trusted information from university and Extension sources, but expressed mixed opinions about their personal experiences with OSU Extension.
5. Tailoring Extension efforts for promotion of diversified crop rotation systems
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Wang, Tong (author), Kasu, Bishal B. (author), Jacquet, Jeffrey (author), and Kumar, Sandeep (author)
- Format:
- Poster
- Publication Date:
- 2018
- Published:
- USA
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 198 Document Number: D09655
- Notes:
- Poster presentation at the 2018 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association annual meeting, Washington, D.C., August 5-7, 2018.
6. Using a participatory approach to refining and prioritising recommendations for future extension delivery in the Tasmanian dairy industry
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Hall, Alison (author), Turner, Lydia (author), and Kilpatrick, Sue (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018
- Published:
- Australia: Australasia-Pacific Extension Network (APEN)
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 124 Document Number: D11210
- Journal Title:
- Rural Extension and Innovation Systems Journal
- Journal Title Details:
- 14(2) : 43-52
- Notes:
- Research effort to refine and prioritize recommendations for future extension and pasture management activities, based on a survey among Tasmanian dairy farmers. Findings led to recommendations involving pasture management training, identifying motivating values of farmers, and requirements for ongoing on-farm support.