19 pages., via online journal., There are about 500 million small-scale farms in low-income countries on the planet. Farmers have been slow to adopt a threefold set of sustainable agronomic practices known as “conservation agriculture” (CA) that have been shown to double productivity. Our study of a novel CA project in Nicaragua, organized based on principles that counter convention, may point to improved ways of understanding and managing sustainable innovations in low-income countries. In particular, by connecting core ideas from the innovation literature to the literature that explores the role of intermediaries such as NGOs, our case study suggests that the efficacy of NGOs to facilitate the adoption of sustainable innovations by small-scale farmers in these settings may be enhanced if NGOs employ non-centrist approaches in order to address the critical uncertainties associated with such innovations. We discuss how our findings contradict some of long-standing arguments in the literature, and their implications for theory and practice.
Simumba, Davy (author) and Koopman, Martine (author)
Format:
Brief
Publication Date:
2011-01
Published:
The Netherlands: International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD)
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 149 Document Number: D10109
Notes:
5 pages., Via website., This project learning brief describes the lessons learned from the INFORNET (Development of an Effective Information Flow Network) project carried out by the Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI) with support from IICD. ICT was used to improve access to the knowledge generated by agricultural researchers and transmitted to farmers by extension workers. Improved research-extension linkages, as well as enhanced communication among researchers in different regions, were central to ZARI's INFORNET project.
Via online access. 7 pages., Examines the elements of an "honest vision for the future with a shared language that accurately describes our world." Size of farm is not the key indicator, the author argues.
Samy, Mohamed Mahmoud (author) and Swanson, Burton E. (author)
Format:
Proceedings
Publication Date:
2005-05-25
Published:
International
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 152 Document Number: C24582
Journal Title Details:
21
Notes:
Reviewed 9 August 2006, 11 p. Paper presented at the International Agricultural and Extension Education group's 21st annual conference May 25-31, 2005, in San Antonio, TX
Alonge, Adewale J. (author / Department of Agricultural Education and Studies, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011)
Format:
Report
Publication Date:
1994
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 97 Document Number: C07940
Notes:
abstracted from Ph.D. thesis, 1993; search through volume, In: Jacquelyn Deeds and Demetria Ford, eds. Summary of Research in Extension (1992-1993). Mississippi State, MS: Department of Agricultural Education and Experimental Statistics, Mississippi State University, July 1994. p. 114
Findlay, Henry J. (author), Morris, Carlton E. (author), Oben, Mercy (author), Zabawa, Robert (author), and Vocational and Extension Education, Tuskegee University, Alabama
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1993
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 93 Document Number: C06984
