International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), Washington, D.C.; Rome, Italy; Nairobi, Kenya; and Paris, France.
Format:
Report
Publication Date:
2008-04
Published:
International
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 166 Document Number: C27798
Notes:
1 page., Suggests the answer, "Yes." Executive summary of a set of reports agreed to at an Intergovernmental Plenary Session in Johannesburg, South Africa, in April, 2008. This was a small part of a study during the past three years by UN organizations, the World Bank and many governments involving 400 experts.
25 pages., Online via UI e-subscription, Researchers evaluated the role of media through qualitative feedback from smallholder farmers identified by Community Markets for Conservation through radio programming efforts involving sustainable agriculture. Results demonstrated the centrality of the radio programming alongside other forms of communication such as extension and farmer-to-farmer communication, as well as written and visual communication.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C37106
Notes:
See C37105 for original, Pages 17-30 in Alessandro Bonanno, Hans Bakker, Raymond Jussaume, Yoshio Kawamura and Mark Shucksmith (eds.), From community to consumption: new and classical themes in rural sociological research. Research in Rural Sociology and Development, Volume 16. Emerald Group Publishing Ltd., Bingley, U.K. 275 pages.
"The recent global food crisis shows that agro-technology and markets alone cannot reduce hunger. A ground-breaking three-year study recently concluded that the agriculture sector should use the know-how of smallholder farmers better." For details about the study, see www.agassessment.org.
21 pgs., CTs (Communications technologies) have revolutionized agricultural information services at every level in the agricultural sector, thus impacting rural development and catalysing poverty alleviation strategies. This has largely been the case with small-scale farmers in rural areas in developing countries where mobile technologies have penetrated more than most other ICT tools. However, in some of the farming environments, mobile phone use is largely driven by agricultural extension workers. This paper seeks to examine the way mobile phones are used for information access in situations where agricultural extension workers are a critical intermediary in the agricultural information services. Interviews were conducted with 10 randomly selected farmers who were part of the Dzindi irrigation scheme. The findings were that from the variety of information available to the farmers the most important source was the extension officer. The extension officer and the radio were indicated to be the most reliable independent sources of information. The other sources, such as the radio, family members, and friends, suppliers of chemicals, books and magazines, were only considered reliable if the information could be verified or vouched for by the extension officer. Increasing the information handling skills of extension officers, training of farmers to use smart features of their phones and promoting the usual face-to-face communication use of conventional methods, which is what usually gives rise to the mediation of mobile phones, were recommended.
