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2. Building Africa’s first “e-Extension Platform” for smallholder farmers
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Gap Report Initiative (author)
- Format:
- Blog posting
- Publication Date:
- 2021-02-24
- Published:
- United States: Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Virginia.
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12519
- Notes:
- 4 pages., Sasakawa Africa Association shares their approach to strengthening the resilience of food systems in Africa through innovative approaches using information and communication technologies. he Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) was established in 1986 by Ryoichi Sasakawa, the first chairman of the Nippon Foundation; Dr. Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and father of the Green Revolution; and former US President, Jimmy Carter; in response to the famine in the Horn of Africa in the 1980s. Since then, SAA has strengthened agricultural extension services in 16 countries in Africa. Currently, we have offices in Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria and Uganda, where we focus on field activities and human resource development at universities and other educational institutions. We also implement human resource development projects in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania.
3. Empowerment of Stakeholders for Scaling-Up: Digital Technologies for Agricultural Extension
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Bhattacharyya, Tapas (author), Wani, Suhas (author), and Tiwary, P. (author)
- Format:
- Book chapter
- Publication Date:
- 2021-11-18
- Published:
- International: Springer Link
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12482
- Journal Title:
- Scaling-up Solutions for Farmers
- Notes:
- Pages 121-147 in Scaling-up Solutions for Farmers., In most of the developing countries in Asia and Africa large yield gaps are existing between the current farmers’ yields and potential achievable yields. The necessity of meeting the farmers’ requirement to scale up research results is paramount for adequate food production. This requires empowerment of farmers by answering queries of farmers appropriately through different extension channels including state and central machineries. These are the backbone of the agricultural technology development to empower farmers as the major stakeholders and hence requires attention. Lack of awareness among farmers about good agricultural management practices compel them to follow the traditional practices. All agricultural education and research, ultimately aims at increased productivity and economic well-being of farmers. This is possible only when there is a minimum gap between laboratories and land. This gap is bridged by agricultural extension. But human capacity, the content of the information, processes of delivery and technology determine effectiveness of extension services. Non-availability of sufficient extension personnel is a major constraint. To overcome these shortcomings, e-Extension (eE) is the alternative. It is important to rejuvenate the agricultural extension system (AES) with innovative information communication technology (ICT) models for knowledge generation and dissemination. Latest digital technologies are discussed in this chapter on ICT to empower farmers to scale up for reaching the required target of food production with special reference to Indian scenario. There is an urgent need to transform neglected knowledge delivery systems by strengthening the science of delivery which has been neglected by the researchers/development worker/policy makers alike. Availability of new technologies such as information technology (IT), internet of things (IoT), audio and video using cell phones, geographical information system (GIS), simulation modelling, remote sensing (RS) open up new vistas for effective knowledge delivery for achieving the impacts on ground. This will help to cross the “Death Valley of Impacts” for achieving the zero hunger goal by adopting innovative approaches/tools and partnerships.
4. 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.
5. Towards a Revolutionized Agricultural Extension System for the Sustainability of Smallholder Livestock Production in Developing Countries: The Potential Role of ICTs
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Mapiye, Obvious (author), Makombe, Godswill (author), Molotsi, Annelin (author), Dmaza, Kennedy (author), and Mapiye, Cletos (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-04-02
- Published:
- International: MDPI
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12537
- Journal Title:
- Sustainability
- Journal Title Details:
- 13 (11)
- Notes:
- 17 pages, The creation of commercialization opportunities for smallholder farmers has taken primacy on the development agenda of many developing countries. Invariably, most of the smallholders are less productive than commercial farmers and continue to lag in commercialization. Apart from the various multifaceted challenges which smallholder farmers face, limited access to extension services stands as the underlying constraint to their sustainability. Across Africa and Asia, public extension is envisioned as a fundamental part of the process of transforming smallholder farmers because it is their major source of agricultural information. Extension continues to be deployed using different approaches which are evolving. For many decades, various authors have reported the importance of the approaches that effectively revitalize extension systems and have attempted to fit them into various typologies. However, there is a widespread concern over the inefficiency of these extension approaches in driving the sustainability of smallholder farming agenda. Further, most of the approaches that attempted to revolutionize extension have been developed and brought into the field in rapid succession, but with little or no impact at the farmer level. This paper explores the theory and application of agricultural extension approaches and argues the potential of transforming them using digital technologies. The adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as mobile phones and the internet which are envisaged to revolutionize existing extension systems and contribute towards the sustainability of smallholder farming systems is recommended