1 - 5 of 5
Number of results to display per page
Search Results
2. Extension Agents’ Perception on Suitability of Climate Change Information Disseminated to Smallholder Farmers
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Mbali Zikhali, Zafezeka (author), Mafongoya, Paramu (author), Mudhara, Maxwell (author), Jiri, Obert (author), and Mudaniso, Blessing (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-04-16
- Published:
- United States: SAGE Journals
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12527
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Asian and African Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- 56 (8)
- Notes:
- 18 pages, This study examined gaps in climate information within public agricultural extension in Limpopo Province, South Africa. It assessed extension officers’ climate change perceptions, knowledge and climate education. Lastly, the study examined the extension approaches for overall suitability of climate information disseminated to rural smallholder farmers. The results indicated that participants were predominately male, with tertiary education. Education levels had an influence on exposure to climate education and extension approaches in disseminating agricultural information to farmers. There is a need to retool extension officers in climate change extension work, integrating indigenous knowledge to increase suitability and acceptability of information by smallholder farmers.
3. 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.
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. Supporting farmer wellbeing: exploring a potential role for advisors
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Hammersley, Conor (author), Richardson, Noel (author), Meredith, David (author), Carroll, Paula (author), and McNamara, John G. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-06-14
- Published:
- USA: Taylor and Francis
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12610
- Journal Title:
- The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension
- Notes:
- 29pgs, Farmers experience poor health outcomes and are considered ‘hard to reach’. Agricultural advisors (‘advisors’) are uniquely positioned to support and signpost farmers on health issues. This paper explores the acceptability and terms of reference of a potential health role for advisors, and offers key recommendations for developing a bespoke farmers’ health training programme.