"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.
Lightfoot, Clive (author) and Nyimbo, Vincon (author)
Format:
Book chapter
Publication Date:
2009
Published:
Tanzania
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C29783
Notes:
Pages 92-94 in Ian Scoones and John Thompson (eds.), Farmer First revisited: innovation for agricultural research and development. Practical Action Publishing, Warwickshire, U.K. 357 pages.
Axinn, Evans, Sixty-nine farm families in Shardanagar Panchayat, Chitwan District, Nepal, provided data via a questionnaire for analysis of the information flow to these farm families. The major channel for information flow in this area was word-of-mouth, with information coming from relatives, various officials, and commercial people. One-third of the farms had radio receivers, and a slightly higher proportion reported that they received newspapers. Two -thirds reported that they received letters from others. Over 75% of the families had a boy or man present who could read, and 17% of the families had a girl present who could read. Organization membership, participation, and other interpersonal inter-actions were also analyzed. (author)
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 199 Document Number: D09926
Notes:
NCR-90 Collection, From Document D09924, "Department of agricultural journalism University of Wisconsin-Madison: Faculty and graduate student research, 1990". Page 5.
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.
