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2. Decoding agricultural digitalisation in Africa
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Boloh, Yanne (author) and Cartmell-Thorp, Susanna (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2019
- Published:
- International: Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, ACP-EU Wageningen, The Netherlands
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 153 Document Number: D11615
- Journal Title:
- Spore
- Journal Title Details:
- 194 : 4-7
- Notes:
- 4 pages., Online from publisher., "For the first time, a landmark report on digitalisation for agriculture (D4Ag) in Africa compiles and highlights data on digital solutions that are enabling the transformation of African agriculture."
3. Rethinking technological change in smallholder agriculture
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Glover, Dominic (author), Sumberg, James (author), Ton, Giel (author), Andersson, Jens (author), and Badstue, Lone (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2019-08-22
- Published:
- International: SAGE Journals
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12493
- Journal Title:
- Outlook on Agriculture
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol 48, Issue 3
- Notes:
- The concept of technology adoption (along with its companions, diffusion and scaling) is commonly used to design development interventions, to frame impact evaluations and to inform decision-making about new investments in development-oriented agricultural research. However, adoption simplifies and mischaracterises what happens during processes of technological change. In all but the very simplest cases, it is likely to be inadequate to capture the complex reconfiguration of social and technical components of a technological practice or system. We review the insights of a large and expanding literature, from various disciplines, which has deepened understanding of technological change as an intricate and complex sociotechnical reconfiguration, situated in time and space. We explain the problems arising from the inappropriate use of adoption as a framing concept and propose an alternative conceptual framework for understanding and evaluating technological change. The new approach breaks down technology change programmes into four aspects: propositions, encounters, dispositions and responses. We begin to sketch out how this new framework could be operationalised.
4. Switching up climate-smart agriculture adoption: Do "green" subsidies, insurance, risk aversion and impatience matter?
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Ngoma, Hambulo (author), Mason-Wardell, Nichole M. (author), Samboko, Paul C. (author), and Hangoma, Peter (author)
- Format:
- Research summary
- Publication Date:
- 2019
- Published:
- Zambia: Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing.
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 166 Document Number: D11674
- Notes:
- 4 pages., Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy, Research Paper 164., Using games, researchers tested the hypothesis that innate behavioral traits such as risk and time preferences play a role in Zambia farmers' decisions about adoption of Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices. "Given our findings that more risk-averse individuals are less likely to adopt CSA, a practice that is intended to be risk-reducing, a key policy implication is the need for a retooling of both public and private extension services to better demonstrate and educate farmers on the risk-reducing effect of CSA practices such as conservation agriculture. Moreover, if insurance and subsidies are to be used successfully to nudge adoption, extension will need to educate farmers on the structure of and mechanisms of payouts. This is important to build trust in the incentive systems.
5. Utilisation of mobile phones in accessing agricultural information by smallholder farmers in Dzindi Irrigation Scheme in South Africa
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Holmner, Marlene (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021
- Published:
- International: African Journals Online
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12100
- Journal Title:
- African Journal of Library, Archives and Information Science
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 29 No. 1
- Notes:
- 21 pgs., CTs (Communications technologies) have revolutionized agricultural information services at every level in the agricultural sector, thus impacting rural development and catalysing poverty alleviation strategies. This has largely been the case with small-scale farmers in rural areas in developing countries where mobile technologies have penetrated more than most other ICT tools. However, in some of the farming environments, mobile phone use is largely driven by agricultural extension workers. This paper seeks to examine the way mobile phones are used for information access in situations where agricultural extension workers are a critical intermediary in the agricultural information services. Interviews were conducted with 10 randomly selected farmers who were part of the Dzindi irrigation scheme. The findings were that from the variety of information available to the farmers the most important source was the extension officer. The extension officer and the radio were indicated to be the most reliable independent sources of information. The other sources, such as the radio, family members, and friends, suppliers of chemicals, books and magazines, were only considered reliable if the information could be verified or vouched for by the extension officer. Increasing the information handling skills of extension officers, training of farmers to use smart features of their phones and promoting the usual face-to-face communication use of conventional methods, which is what usually gives rise to the mediation of mobile phones, were recommended.