"Communicating Agricultural Information in Remote Places, IXth World Congress of International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists, Melbourne, Australia. Part 2.
17 pages, via online journal, The greatest challenge now facing agricultural science is not how to increase production overall but how to enable resource-poor farmers to produce more.
The transfer-of-technology (TOT) model of agricultural research is part of the normal professionalism of agricultural scientists. In this model, scientists largely determine research priorities, develop technologies in controlled conditions, and then hand them over to agricultural extension to transfer to farmers. Although strong structures and incentives sustain this normal professionalism, many now recognise the challenge of its bad fit with the needs and conditions of hundreds of millions of resource-poor farm (RPF) families. In response to this problem, the TOT model has been adapted and extended through multi-disciplinary farming systems research (FSR) and on-farm trials. These responses retain power in the hands of scientists. Information is obtained from farmers and processed and analysed in order to identify what might be good for them. A missing element is methods to encourage and enable resource-poor farmers themselves to meet and work out what they need and want.
McLaughlin, Martin M. (author / Senior Fellow, Overseas Development Council, Washington, D.C.) and Senior Fellow, Overseas Development Council, Washington, D.C.
Format:
Conference paper
Publication Date:
1978
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 34 Document Number: B03652
Notes:
James F. Evans Collection; Burton Swanson Collection, In: Proceedings of Special International Conference on Agricultural Technology for Developing Nations : farm mechanization alternatives for 1-10 hectare farms; 1978 may 23-24; University of Illinois, Urbana, IL. 1978.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: Byrnes2 Document Number: C12365
Notes:
Francis C. Byrnes Collection, Chapter 13 in Borton, Raymond E. (ed.), Case studies to accompany Getting Agriculture Moving. Agricultural Development Council, New York, NY. 1967. 302 p.
