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2. Assessing the status of social media familiarity among smallholder farmers: a case study of Thika, Kiambu Kenya
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Kimani, Anne W. (author), Nyang’anga, Hillary T. (author), and Mburu, John I. (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2019
- Published:
- Pakistan: eSci Journals Publishing
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 122 Document Number: D11153
- Journal Title:
- International Journal of Agricultural Extension
- Journal Title Details:
- 7(1):13-20
- Notes:
- 8 pages., via online journal., Social media provides huge opportunities and incentives that could ease promotion of agricultural extension, facilitate real-time service delivery and enable wider farmer coverage. Ineffective dissemination approaches, expanding farmer population, low staffing, and aging agricultural extension agents continue to negatively affect the provision of agricultural extension services in Kenya. Despite the social media potential in agricultural communication, lack of awareness and low usage in the rural areas of developing countries have been documented. This study sought to establish the level of social media familiarity among smallholder rural farmers with the aim of exploring the possibility of usage in agricultural extension. The study was undertaken in Thika Sub-County of Kiambu County on 140 farmers through a researcher administered semi-structured questionnaire. Probability-proportional-to-size sampling method was employed to derive the sample size from existing extension farmer groups. Simple random sampling technique was further used to identify the actual respondents from each group. A low level of social media familiarity was established among the farmers with education, age and gender having significant influence. The study recommends awareness creation initiatives to promote social media familiarity with a particular focus on women who form the bulk of the farmers but with the lowest level of social media knowledge.
3. Blending digital and physical tools to deliver CSA information
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Ndirangu, Stella (author)
- Format:
- Opinion
- 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: D11614
- Notes:
- 3 pages., Online from publisher., Author addresses "large gap between African extension services ... and the number of farmers being reached." ... "Africa's existing mobile network (currently the second biggest mobile market in the world) could be better utilised to bridge this gap and provide mobile-based agricultural information, advice and support to smallholder farmers."
4. Challenges in Accessing Agricultural Information Sources and Services by Farmers in Edu Local Government Area of Kwara State
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Olorunnishola, Emmanuel (author), Yusuf, Sherif (author), Zwalmam, Singya Zhimwang (author), and Suberu, Saka Bamidele (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-05-01
- Published:
- United States: University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12358
- Journal Title:
- Library Philosophy and Practice
- Journal Title Details:
- Summer 2021
- Notes:
- 12 pages., Agriculture play significant role towards sustainability of developing nations’ economy particularly Nigeria by providing abundant raw materials required by the industry, as well as ensures food security and a healthy nation. This study examines the challenges of accessing agricultural information sources and services by farmers in Edu Local Government Area of Kwara State. Survey method was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprise of 16066 from which 78 farmers of the study area were selected using stratified random sampling and purposive sampling procedure. From the copies of questionnaires administered only 60 were duly completed and returned. Frequency and percentages were used in analyzing data collected. The findings from the study showed that information needs of farmers among others include application of improve techniques, irrigation management, seeds prices, farm wild fire management and prevention, purchase and use of fertilizer, government blueprint on agriculture, and meteorology information need of farmers in Edu Local Government . The findings further revealed that poor communication system, absence of library and information centre, absence of extension agents, insufficient knowledge on marketing of farm produce , insufficient credit facilities, insufficient information on government policies, insufficient fund were the challenges faced by farmers in accessing agricultural information sources and services. The study recommended among others that central facility providing and disseminating information on agricultural related services should be created in the study area that would be accessible to all farmers in order to meet their information needs.
5. Collaboration Relations in Climate Information Production and Dissemination to Subsistence Farmers in Namibia
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- New, Mark (author) and Ofoegbu, Chidiebere (author)
- Format:
- Journal Article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-09-28
- Published:
- International: Springer Link
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12098
- Journal Title:
- Environmental Management
- Journal Title Details:
- (2021) 67
- Notes:
- 14 Pgs., Although climate information can aid farmers’ capacity to adapt to climate change, its accessibility and adoption by subsistence farmers hinge on the collaboration between farmers and climate information providers. This paper examines collaborations among actors in the process of climate information production and dissemination in the Namibian agricultural sector. The aim is to investigate the extent to which subsistence farmers are integrated into the collaboration process and the impact of the collaboration on the nature and accessibility of disseminated information. Key informant interviews and a questionnaire survey were used for data collection. Using network analysis, we estimated the networks’ density, clustering coefficient, and degree centrality. The study found that both the climate information production and dissemination networks have a high overall clustering coefficient (78% and 77%, respectively) suggesting a high rate of collaboration among the actors in the networks. However, the frequency of interactions between the actors in both the information production and dissemination networks and subsistence farmers remains very low. Nearly all surveyed farmers reported that they meet with information providers only once in a year. The effect of this poor interaction is reflected in the poor occurrence of feedback learning, which is needed to optimize channels of information dissemination to subsistence farmers and enhance the robustness of disseminated information. We recommend innovative communication means via mobile phone, promotion of peer-to-peer learning, flexible collaboration relations with more space for feedback from the users of climate information, and more attention to long-term forecasts and their implications for adaptive actions.
6. 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.
7. Developing farmer-extension research linkages to address the needs of resource-poor farmers in rainfed environments
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Russell, John F. A. (author)
- Format:
- Report
- Publication Date:
- unknown
- Published:
- Indian Society of Extension Education, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Indian Council of Agricultural Research
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 134 Document Number: C20575
- Notes:
- Burton Swanson Collection, 12 pages; International Conference on Extension Strategy for Minimizing Risk in Rainfed Agriculture
8. 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.
9. Factors Influencing Use of Information and Communication Technologies among Farmers in Rural Punjab, Pakistan
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Luqman, Muhammad (author), Yaseen, Muhammad (author), Ashraf, Saleem (author), Mehmood, Muhammad Umer (author), and Karim, Mujahid (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2019-04
- Published:
- African Journals Online
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 121 Document Number: D11068
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Agricultural Extension
- Journal Title Details:
- 23 (2)
- Notes:
- 12 pages., via online journal., This study explored the factors influencing the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) among farmers in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The Punjab province is divided into three agro-ecological zones viz Northern, Central and Southern. In this study, one district from each zone was randomly selected. Total sample size comprises of 150 farmers. Farmers were interviewed using a self-administered interview schedule comprising of open and close-ended questions. Respondents’ access to ICTs was low level. Chi-square test revealed a significant association between the age of respondents and adoption of ICTs. Young respondents were leading users of ICTs in the study area. Size of landholding and income level of the respondents had a significant association with the frequency of use of ICTs in agriculture. Among various ICTs tools, mobile/cell phone attracted 47.3% of respondents to access agricultural information. Factors militating use of ICTs include; electricity/power issues (x̄=2.95/3.00), language barriers (x̄=2.93/3.00), limited knowledge and skills about ICTs (x̄=2.89/3.00), high cost (x̄=2.87/3.00) and limited availability of ICTs (x̄=2.85/3.00). Extent of ICTs use to access agricultural information can surge with t
10. Factors influencing access to agricultural knowledge: the case of smallholder rice farmers in the Kilombero district of Tanzania
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Mtega, Wulystan P. (author), Ngoepe, Mpho (author), and Dube, Luyanda (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2016-05-27
- Published:
- Tanzania
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 169 Document Number: D08776
- Journal Title:
- South African Journal of Information Management
- Journal Title Details:
- 18(1)
- Notes:
- 8 pages.