15 Pages, Online Journal via U of I subscription, As a bottom-up, grassroots paradigm for sustainable rural development, agroecology is particularly promising for smallholders in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. However, by adopting agroecology, smallholders will be challenged to take on new perspectives and compile and integrate different sourced information to innovate. Today’s fast evolving information and communications technology in sub-Saharan Africa represents great opportunities for rural populations to enhance the adoption and success of agroecology and to address their daunting challenges simultaneously while conserving, protecting and enhancing natural resources. Agroecology combined with information and communications technology will probably be smallholders’ “precision agriculture” in many developing countries to enhance their food security and livelihood.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 10 Document Number: B01371
Notes:
AgComm Teaching. Review of Extension Research 1946/47-1956, Extension Service Circular 506, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., Ithaca, New YorK: Dept of Extension Teaching and Information, New York State Colleges of Agriculture and Home Economics at Cornell University, 29pp
Goodwin, B.K. (author), Kastens, T.L. (author), and Department of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University; Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, North Carolina State University
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1994
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 101 Document Number: C08619
7 pages, Agricultural extension is the medium through which external agricultural technologies have been transferred to and transplanted in Africa to improve agricultural performance. Over a period of close to a century, different agricultural extension models have been proposed but their structure and content has virtually been the same: top-down, linear, non-participatory transfer of technology with no feedback loops for reverse diffusion. This presumably explains the poor performance of Africa’s agriculture and the scale of food security challenges facing the continent. In this review paper, we trace the history of agricultural extension and examine various agricultural extension delivery models to identify their major strengths and weaknesses, using Ghana and Burkina Faso as case studies. We then review the most recent literature in the field about the philosophy, scope, content, delivery, and outcomes of agricultural extension. The conclusion that agricultural extension has consistently remained out of sync with the needs and aspirations of stallholder farmers was reached. Smallholder farmers are now calling for new agricultural extension delivery models that are truly farmer-led, indigenous knowledge-based, context-specific, culturally-relevant and environmentally-sustainable to guarantee efficient farming systems into the future.
