12 pages., via online journal., In recent years, there has been extensive investment in e-governance throughout the developing world. Still, little is known about the impact of those investments, partly due to a lack of assessment guidance. In this study modified sustainable livelihood framework approach was used for studying impact of the project on farmers. Before and after data was collected from the registered farmers using recall method to assess the impact of the project on all five types of capital (Natural capital, financial capital, human capital, physical capital and social capital). It was found that after implementation of the project, in the category of natural capital, average production and average sold quantity of rice, wheat, pigeon pea, mustard, and green gram has been significantly increased and in the category of financial capital, respondents’ average family income, earning from agriculture and allied sector and benefit from government schemes has been significantly increased and in the category of human capital, average number of training received by respondents and average number of extension contacts made by respondents has been significantly increased and in the category of physical capital, average storage facility has been increased by respondents and in the category of social capital, average number of meetings attended by respondents in Krishi Gyan Kendra has been significantly increased.
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.
20 pages., via online journal., During the last 10 years, different initiatives have been implemented to provide mobile-based extension services for the agricultural sector in Egypt. The current study compared the quality of agricultural extension messages between public and private providers. A simple random sample of 120 farmers was selected representing 7% of the total farmers registered in the databases of Ministry of Agriculture (public services) and Shoura company (private services). Farmers assessed a sample of 10 messages delivered by both providers in terms of six indicators namely (1) access, (2) utilization, (3) timeliness, (4) trust, (5) satisfaction, and (6) sharing information with other farmers. The findings revealed the lack of access to messages by the farmers in the two services. However, more than 50% had utilized the majority of messages (in case of access). The study also showed significant differences between perception of farmers to quality attributes in public and private services (Access 6.77, 0.01; Utilization 8.44, 0.004; Timeliness 8.55, 0.002; Satisfaction 8.88, 0.001; information sharing 7.62, 0.009) except for trust (1.11, 0.4). Findings provide practical implications to support mobile-based extension services to enable sharing information and link farmers with other actors in the agricultural value chain.
Abstract via online journal. 2 pages., Technological innovation is vital to economic growth and food security in sub-Saharan Africa where agricultural productivity has been stagnant for a long time. Extension services and learning from peer farmers are two common approaches to facilitate the diffusion of new technologies, but little is known about their relative effectiveness. Selection bias, whereby well-motivated training participants would perform better even without extension services, as well as knowledge spillovers, where non-participants can indirectly benefit from extension services, are among the major threats to causal inference. Using a unique sequential randomized experiment on agricultural training, this study attempts to meet the dual objectives of executing rigorous impact evaluation of extension services and subsequent spillovers on rice production in Cote d’Ivoire. Specifically, to reduce selection bias, we randomly assigned eligibility for training participation; and to satisfy the stable unit treatment value assumption, control-group farmers were initially restricted from exchanging information with treated-group farmers who had received rice management training. Once some positive impacts were confirmed, information exchange between the treated and control farmers was encouraged. We found that the initial performance gaps created by the randomized assignment disappeared over time, due presumably to social learning from peer farmers. A detailed analysis concerning the information network and peer effects provided suggestive evidence that there were information and technology spillovers from treated to control farmers after removing the information exchange restriction. Overall, our study demonstrates that information dissemination by farmers can be as effective in improving practices as the initial training provided by extension services.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 34 Document Number: D10673
Notes:
4 pages., via Scientific American website., Opinion piece by Esther Ngumbi, a distinguished postdoctoral researcher at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Entomology Department and a Food Security, on why she believes there needs to be a bigger emphasis on public communication by scientists.
3 pages., via online journal., Farm Innovators are regularly exchanging information and their experiences using WhatsApp messenger on their mobile phones. Most of the content shared was knowledge intensive with a mix of personal farming experiences. As Social constructivist learning theory seeks to improve socialinteractions to construct and share knowledge and the social networking through WhatsApp has proved to be potential to construct knowledge. Learning being the outcome of interactions between cognitive and psychological and the WhatsApp being the potential source for socialization and internalization promoted the creation ofsocial wealth in the form of discussion forums of Innovative farmers for learning exchange. The extension mechanism for purposeful farmer to farmer learning exchange has been created which in turn
is a step towards innovative farmer led extension delivery mechanism. The potential of not only WhatsApp but other social media need to be exploited to bring location specific and commodity oriented transformative changes in the agriculture extension delivery system. The experimentation with innovative farmers is not only helping in scaling the farmers’ innovations but also institutional innovations at large. As all human resources (labour, management, innovation, creativity) are products of social relationships, no one can reach maturity without the help of personally caring people, including their families, friends, neighbors, and communities. Farms and agricultural enterprises also depend on the ability of people to work together toward the common goal of ecological, social, and economic sustainability through social networks.
Spurk, Christoph (author), Asule, Pamellah (author), Ofori-Baah, Rebecca (author), Chikopela, Louis (author), Diarra, Boubacar (author), Koch, Carmen (author), and Wageningen University
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2019-08-21
Published:
Netherlands: Taylor & Francis
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 108 Document Number: D10944
22 pages, via online journal article, Purpose: Soil fertility is decreasing in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. To mitigate this trend, various agricultural technologies are available, but their uptake by farmers has been low. Perception of the problem, information exposure, and knowledge play a major role in adoption of technologies. This study assessed empirically the levels of perception, knowledge and information exposure among African farmers as an indicator for potential adoption of soil fertility technologies.
Design/Methodology/approach: The study used survey data of more than 2,400 small-scale farmers selected through random sampling from Ghana, Kenya, Mali and Zambia. The survey investigated socio-economic factors, exposure to media, perception and knowledge of soil fertility and other information.
Findings: Many farmers did not perceive soil fertility as a major challenge, except in Mali; farmers were hardly receiving information on soil fertility from professional agricultural sources, and they often lacked accurate knowledge about soil fertility technologies. Radio was by far the most used information source for farmers.
Practical implications: The study has exposed the need for interventions to increase awareness, information exposure, and knowledge about soil fertility among farmers to strengthen the adoption of soil fertility technologies. It also calls for innovative ways of strengthening extension services through links with radio.
Theoretical implications: The role of communication in the uptake of agricultural innovations is still under-researched, and hence this study exposes the need to investigate in-depth knowledge, perception levels, and quality and frequency of information exposure on various channels of soil fertility management.
Originality: This is one of the few studies empirically measuring perception, information frequency on various channels, and knowledge of soil fertility among small-scale farmers in African countries.
