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2. 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.
3. Impact Assessment of Information and Communication Technologies in Agriculture: Application of The Ambitec-TICs Method
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Pinto, Daniela Maciel (author), De Oliveira, Priscilla (author), Minitti, André Fachini (author), Mendes, Angelo Mansur (author), Vilela, Gisele Freitas (author), Castro, Gustavo Spadotti Amaral (author), Nogueira, Lauro Rodrigues (author), Bogiani, Julio Cesar (author), Rocha, José Dilcio (author), Novaes, Renan Milagres Lage (author), de Barros, Inácio (author), and Rodrigues, Geraldo Stachetti (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-08-30
- Published:
- Brazil: Association of Management
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D12384
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Technology Management & Innovation
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 16 No. 2
- Notes:
- 12 pages., An extraordinary moment of agricultural modernization is currently underway due to innovations in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). In this process, management precepts are renewed, fostering significant gains in efficiency, productivity, and sustainable use of natural resources and the environment. The growing supply of ICTs and the extension of connectivity in rural areas, with their transforming roles in productive practices and economic relations, bring about questions regarding their impacts. These technologies include precision positioning systems and large volume databases, electronic sensors of site-specific production and environmental conditions, repositories of relational data, statistical and crop forecasting software, methodologies and processes; web-based information services, among others. The assessment of impacts focused on ICTs for agriculture needs innovative approaches, due to the peculiarities of their applications, the different scales of their socioenvironmental scopes and, at the same time, the verification of effectiveness of institutional investments on research, development, and innovation (RD&I). Based on these premises, the objectives of this work are to present a ‘module of impact indicators for Information and Communication Technologies (Ambitec-TICs)’, and assess its application to six typical technology adoption cases resulting from agricultural RD&I projects. The results detail critical analyses of the contributions of the proposed module for the registration, interpretation, and communication of impacts, with recommendations for technology transfer and accountability in institutional Social Balance documentation.
4. Information and communication technology in agribusiness: A study of mobile applications in perspective of India
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Gupta, Chandan (author), Gupta, Manu (author), Joshi, Pradeep (author), and Kumar, Ajendra (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-06-15
- Published:
- International: Applied and Natural Science Foundation
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12385
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Applied & Natural Science
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 13(2)
- Notes:
- 9 pages, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in one of its finding in 2019 stated that about 58% Indians are dependent on agriculture and agriculture sector make about 15.96 % of India’s GDP. To get the best agriculture inputs and best harvest price is the big question for Indian farmers; thus, we can say that “Agriculture is the foundation of the Indian economy”. With the origin of Mobile Applications (m-apps) for agriculture and a huge dependency on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in agribusiness, the scenario in rural India has been changing rapidly. Since India’s economy depends mainly on agriculture, there is a lot of potential for Information and Communication Technology and mobile applications for agribusiness and its marketing. With growing smartphones with m-apps penetration in rural India, the agribusiness in rural belts of India is set for extension and further digitalization to revolutionize the agriculture sector. In recent years, nearly all Indian farmers possess a mobile, and 50%are smartphones with internet connections. With Government's new legislative policy changes as the Digital India programme, mobile applications in India's rural belt cannot remain isolated. Digital India will connect rural Indians farmers worldwide through the internet and mobile applications and provide them with all necessary upliftment in agribusiness in India. This study has focused on the ICT and m-applications used in farming today and how they have changed agribusiness by providing a digital platform and with their impact on agribusiness.
5. Is farming a belief in northern ghana? exploring the dual-system theory for commerce, culture, religion and technology
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Tanko, Mohammed (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-11
- Published:
- Netherlands: Elsevier Sci Ltd.
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 203 Document Number: D12268
- Journal Title:
- Technology in Society
- Journal Title Details:
- V. 63
- Notes:
- 7 pages, Rice production encountered several challenges, especially among rural farmers in Northern Ghana. The current debate encompasses the belief of cultural norms and religious values as the right theory for the sustainability of agriculture. The belief in abstracts is prioritised to the adoption of improved rice. This paper examined the value attached to traditional rice varieties as a result of societal beliefs, and theoretically underpinned by the Dual-system hypothesis. The finding from three ethnic and religious groups through a survey indicates heterogeneity in the results but also demonstrates the factual importance of culture and religion. This paper, therefore, proposes a new way of categorising farming; as a business and a belief and that policy stream aim at small scale, rural farmers with belief peculiarities needs to adopt cultural and religious strategies to promote adoption.
6. 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.