12 pages., Via online journal., This article is concerned with the shaping of agricultural knowledge among farmers, in the context of the rapid changes Polish agriculture has been subject to since the time of the country's EU accession. The theoretical underpinnings of this work have been described in terms of the significant notional categories, i.e. knowledge, knowledge-cultures and sources of knowledge. The research made use of the joint interviews method. Interviews were run with representatives of different generations in 10 farming families in central Poland. The main research objective was to determine sources of farming knowledge among farmers. The use of joint interviews allowed for the identification of sources of knowledge of different kinds. These reflect a division into farmers' closer and more distant surroundings, i.e. to the family and neighbours on the one hand, and to institutions and media on the other. Knowledge acquisition among farmers is in fact found to be a complex process, reflecting socialisation in a multi-generation environment of family and neighbours, on the one hand, and the impact of the institutional and legal system, on the other. In a general sense, this corresponds to the well-known division of sources of knowledge into the tacit and the explicit, with the acquisition of tacit (i.e. informal) knowledge not meeting with any more major obstacles thanks to proximity in a sense that may be cultural (i.e. the agriculture itself), family-related (and in fact multi-generation) and spatial (physical proximity in a given locality). Microsocial conditioning thus plays a major role in the shaping of this source of knowledge. However, the most important factor distinguishing contemporary cultures as regards knowledge on farming is the capacity to adapt to conditions set by the institutions supporting the latter's development. Formal knowledge flowing into farming families from their institutional surroundings requires growing adaptability and preparation if a succession of innovations are to be taken on board. The multi-source nature of knowledge and the achievement of some kind of balance in this respect actually poses a major challenge for the future functioning of family farms as cultural microsystems.
Ragasa, Catherina (author), Ulimwengo, John (author), Randriamamonjy, Josee (author), Badibanga, Thaddee (author), and International Food Policy Research Institution
Washington, DC office
Western and Central Africa Regional Office
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2016-04
Published:
Netherlands: Taylor and Francis
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 108 Document Number: D10953
32 pages, via online journal article, Purpose: As part of the institutional reforms and agricultural restructuring in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this paper provides an assessment of the performance of the agricultural extension system as well as factors explaining it.
Method: This paper involves key informants’ interviews and surveys of 107 extension organizations and 162 extension agents in randomly selected 156 villages, analyzed using qualitative and logistic regression methods.
Findings and Practical Implications: Results show that despite having one of the highest extension agent-to-farmer ratio and a pluralistic extension system, DRC fails to deliver knowledge and technologies to rural areas due to lack of coordination, no unified and clear policy and mandate, lack of funding, aging and low competencies of agents, and lack of mobility and interactions of agents with key actors. This paper complements findings by other studies that number of agents is not a sufficient indication of performance, but an effective system needs to focus on the enabling environment for agents to be motivated to work as mandated. In this paper, enabling conditions that are found to be statistically significant are external funding, enforcement of performance targets, systems of rewards and sanctions, mobility to foster linkages, and skills development.
Originality: This paper contributes by: (1) analyzing a cross-section of various organizations and agents to identify factors that explain variations in performance in a statistical and systematic approach; (2) providing insights on how to prioritize investments and options for a fragile state like DRC, with weak infrastructure and institutional capacity and with a long history of neglect for their national extension system; and (3) illustrating how a rich and well-cited conceptual framework can be implemented empirically to provide policy options for a country like DRC.
9 pages., Via online journal., This paper looks at how knowledge has been communicated within a multi-layered water governance structure in order to manage non-point source (NPS) pollution in South Korea. Since 28,300 ha of wetlands were reclaimed in Saemangeum, on the western side of the country, in 2006, the artificial lake created has suffered from chronic pollution. For the purposes of integrated water management, a water governance structure was formed linking organisations ranging from local to national scales. Despite institutional efforts to implement integrated water management and a governance approach, knowledge of NPS pollution and its management was produced and communicated among certain stakeholders only, such as policy and technical experts. In-depth interview and archival analysis of this research attempt to explain why and how the loss of knowledge communication occurred in this context. The first result of this research illustrates that, while knowledge communication has been smooth at the national and provincial layers, it has not taken place efficiently through to the local layer. When it comes to local farmers and governmental organisations and experts in particular, knowledge nodes have not functioned. Second, the research suggests that non-communication of knowledge has been mobilised as a professional strategy. Actors at the local layer have prioritized their professional interests and intentionally avoided knowledge communication with other department or ministries. Local and community actors have chosen not to provide farmers information. We conclude by discussing policy implications for knowledge communication and inclusive water governance.
19 pages., via online journal., The following study looks at how traditional, organic, cooperative farmers
starting a new farming cooperative in the US Southwest communicate
about their farming as a set of (sustainable) cultural practices. The study
draws on environmental communication theory, the theory of the
coordinated management of meaning, and Vandana Shiva’s three-tiered
economic model to construct a communication-based framework
through which to view farmers’ stories about sustainability. This
framework is productive, showing how some Nuevo Mexicano farmers
(and others) orient toward farming, sustenance, and human-nature
relationships through community, family, heritage, and education.
Moreover, in addition to a conceptualization of sustainability as specific
practices for nurturing and enduring in environments, communities, and
organizations/institutions, sustainability can be understood as
embedded ecocultural and historical experience with cross-cultural
parallels in land-based communities. This study advances the ethical
duty of environmental communication to better understand the ways in
which environmental discourse and ecocultural and material realities are
imbricated, as well as the call for such discursive study to be grounded
in phenomenological experience of the natural world.
