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2. Empowering farmers to learn and innovate through integration of video-mediated and face-to-face extension approaches: the case of rice farmers in Uganda
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Karubanga, Gabriel (author), Kibwika, Paul (author), Okry, Florent (author), and Sseguya, Haroon (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2016
- Published:
- Taylor & Francis
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 38 Document Number: D10697
- Journal Title:
- Cogent Food & Agriculture
- Journal Title Details:
- 2(1): 1-12
- Notes:
- 12 pages., Article #: 1274944, via online journal., Agricultural extension is perceived as the primary mechanism through which farmers expand their ability to adopt and adapt new technologies and ideas. The use of Information and Communication Technology like videos in extension is being fronted as an alternative to the conventional Face-to face extension approach (F2FEA). A comparison of effectiveness of the Video-mediated extension approach (VMEA) and F2FEA among rice farmers in two districts of Uganda challenges the independent use of the two approaches. A cross-sectional survey of two nonequivalent groups subjected to VMEA in Kamwenge and F2FEA in Hoima districts was conducted with 196 farmers. The results indicate greater potential for integration of VMEA and F2FEA as the two are complementary in the various stages of the farmer learning framework developed. VMEA is significantly better in awareness creation and sharing of knowledge and experiences while the F2FEA is significantly better at enhancing knowledge acquisition and retention and application. The relative strengths of VMEA and F2FEA can best be harnessed through integration of the approaches. The integration will not solve the problem of large farmer to extension ratio common in developing countries but will rather make the extension workers more effective. The integration however calls for rethinking of institutional arrangement, roles of the extension worker, and pragmatic retooling of the extension worker to embrace social learning principles that empower farmers to be more self-directed learners and innovators.
3. Group discussion
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Jones, J.H., Jr. (author)
- Format:
- Book chapter
- Publication Date:
- 1966
- Published:
- USA
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08496
- Notes:
- Pages 331-338 in H.C. Sanders and others (editors), The Cooperative Extension Service, Prentice-Hall,Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 436 pages.
4. Innovation intermediation in a digital age: comparing public and private new-ICT platforms for agricultural extension in Ghana
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Munthali, Nyamwaya (author), Leeuwis, Cees (author), Van Paassen, Annemarie (author), Lie, Rico (author), Asare, Richard (author), Van Lammeren, Ron (author), and Schut, Marc (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018-11
- Published:
- Science Direct
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 12 Document Number: D10421
- Journal Title:
- NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences
- Journal Title Details:
- (86-87) : 64-76
- Notes:
- 13 pages., Via online journal., Agricultural extension in sub-Saharan Africa has often been criticised for its focus on linear knowledge transfer, and limited attention to systemic approaches to service delivery. Currently, the region is experiencing a new-ICT revolution and there are high expectations of new-ICTs to enhance interaction and information exchange in extension service delivery. Using an innovation systems perspective, we distinguish the roles demand-articulation, matching demand and supply, and innovation process management for innovation-intermediaries. The study explores literature on how new-ICT may support these roles, with specific interest in the possibilities of environmental monitoring and new forms of organisation enabled by enhanced connectivity. In order to contribute to the understanding of this area, the paper reports on a comparative study of two new-ICT platforms embedded in Ghanaian public and private extension organisations respectively. We assess the roles that these platforms (aim to) support, and document achievements and constraints based on interviews with extension staff and farmers. The findings indicate that while both platforms aim to support innovation-intermediation roles the focus areas and level of detail differ due to diverging organisational rationales to service delivery. In addition, we see that new-ICTs' potential to support innovation-intermediation roles is far from realised. This is not due to (new) ICTs lacking the capacity to link people in new ways and make information accessible, but due to the wider social, organisational and institutional factors that define the realisation of their potential. Therefore, more conventional modes of interaction around production advice and also credit provision continue to be dominant and better adapted to the situation. However, beyond the two platforms that were developed specifically by and for the extension organisations, there were indications that more informal and self-organised new-ICT initiatives can transform and enhance interaction patterns in innovations systems to achieve collective goals through standard virtual platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram.
5. Learning from experts and peer farmers about rice production: experimental evidence from Cote d’Ivoire
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Takahashi, Kazushi (author), Mano, Yukichi (author), and Otsuka, Keijiro (author)
- Format:
- Journal article abstract
- Publication Date:
- 2019
- Published:
- Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 18 Document Number: D10534
- Journal Title:
- World Development
- Journal Title Details:
- 122: 157-169
- Notes:
- 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.
6. Reconfiguring the agricultural knowledge system in Switzerland
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Obrist, R. (author), Moschitz, JH. (author), and Home, R. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article abstract
- Language:
- German with English abstract
- Publication Date:
- 2015
- Published:
- Switzerland
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 132 Document Number: D11344
- Journal Title:
- Agrarforschung Schweiz
- Journal Title Details:
- 6(5) : 218-223
- Notes:
- Online from the University of Illinois Online Catalog, using article title search, via Scopus, Results of a workshop prompted a conclusion that "a change is under way in the understanding of the role of stakeholders in science, extension and education, with the latter progressing from mere conveyors of information to facilitators who generate new knowledge jointly with the various actors." ... "There is still a need to shape more clearly the choice of research topics, the efficient and effective performance of the practice-oriented research, the processing of research results, stakeholder discussions, and joint implementation."
7. The distribution of farmer learning videos: Lessons from non-conventional dissemination networks in Benin
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Zoundji, Gérard C. (author), Okry, Florent (author), Vodouhê, Simplice D. (author), and Bentley, Jeffery W. (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2016-01-01
- Published:
- Taylor & Francis
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 38 Document Number: D10698
- Journal Title:
- Cogent Food & Agriculture
- Journal Title Details:
- 2(1): 1-15
- Notes:
- 15 pages., Article #: 1277838, via online journal., Commercial channels can be non-conventional networks for disseminating agricultural information, especially if farmers are willing to pay for a DVD with learning videos. Using purposive sampling, we selected retailer and involved them in selling videos compiled in a DVD. Inside the jacket of DVD, we pasted a sticker listing a phone number that buyers or video viewers could call for further questions. We interviewed 341 of the buyers who called that number. After the phone interviews, snowball sampling was used to select 180 farmers for face-to-face interviews in order to validate the information collected during the telephone interviews and to understand the behavioural changes triggered by watching the videos. Within four months of first distributing DVDs to retailers, 80% of the 700 DVDs were sold. Distributing videos through commercial channels gives a fair chance to everyone to learn, since the DVDs were sold on the open market at an affordable price. About 84% of the DVDs were sold at 1 USD, suggesting that all of the respondents were willing to pay for learning DVDs; 86% of respondents said they now spent less money on pesticides after watching the videos. Private sector actors can become “new extensionists” and distribute agricultural information to rural populations.