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2. Reaching out? Governing weather and climate services (WCS) for farmers
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Vedeld, Trond (author), Hofstad, Hege (author), Mathur, Mihir (author), Büker, Patrick (author), and Stordal, Frode (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-02
- Published:
- Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 138 Document Number: D11503
- Journal Title:
- Environmental Science and Policy
- Journal Title Details:
- 104: 208-216
- Notes:
- 9 pages., via online journal., High-quality weather and climate services (WCS) can be critical for communicating knowledge about current and future weather and climate risks for adaptation and disaster risk management in the agricultural sector. This paper investigates the structure and performance of weather and climate services for farmers from a governance perspective. Empirically the paper compares the institutional design and operations of agro-meteorological services in Maharashtra/India and Norway through a ‘most different case study’ approach. The two cases were selected to represent great diversity in location, scale and institutional design. A governance approach based on semi-direct interviews and policy and institutional analysis was combined with local survey data of farmers’ perceptions and use of the services. Despite the fact that the context for the two agromet advisory services was very different from a climate-weather, eco-agriculture and socio-institutional angle, the analysis reveals great similarities in the services structures and critical governance challenges. In both countries the agromet services communicated knowledge that was largely perceived not to be well tailored to farmers’ needs for decisions in specific crops- and farm operations, spatially too coarse to address local issues, and, often unreliable or inaccurate in terms of the quality of data. Farmers did, however, respond positively to specific and locally relevant information on e.g., warnings about high rainfall and spread of pests. Observing such similarities across very diverse contexts enhances the generalization potential, precisely because they evolved under very different circumstances. Similar observations find support in the wider WCS literature. Based on the empirical findings, we propose a more deliberate approach to institutional design of WCS in order to enhance governance performance and co-creation of the services at local, district and national scales. It is suggested that greater participation of farmers and agricultural extension agents in the co-creation of these services is a necessary means of improving the services, supported by the WCS literature. However, we insist that greater participation is only likely to materialize if the deficiencies in institutional design and knowledge quality and relevance are addressed to greater extent than done today. The comparison between the two services shows that Norway can learn from India that a more ambitious scope and multiple forms of communication, including the use of social media/WhatsApp groups, can facilitate greater awareness and interest among farmers in multi-purpose agromet services for multi-way communication. India can learn from Norway that a more integrated and decentralized institutional design can strengthen the network attributes of the services, foster co-creation, and improve participation of both poor and large-scale farmers and extension agents.
3. 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."