Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 151 Document Number: D06779
Notes:
Online from the Society for News Design (SDN). 6 pages., Report from 10 cross-functional teams of designers, developers product owners, educators and students who met in Austin, Texas,to create prototypes of solutions to the question,"How might we invent tools that promote community?"
2 pages., Via UI online subscription., Purpose: This paper examines extension practises of agricultural workers within the Egyptian government and the perceived barriers they face in implementing participatory approaches, identifying improvements required in research and extension processes to meet the real needs of Egyptian farming communities.
Design/Methodology/Approach: Key barriers for engaging in participatory extension were identified using content analysis of semi-structured interviews, surveys and focus group discussion of 37 government agricultural workers along with participant observation and review of existing literature.
Findings: The majority of workers surveyed understood basic participatory extension principles and desired to use these approaches. Changing from traditional ‘top down’ extension to systems that engage with farmers' needs at the community level is made difficult due to the aging and poorly functioning Village Extension Worker (VEW) network. Thus, it is far easier for the research driven extension programmes to use technology transfer models.
Practical Implications: Participatory extension relies on strong relationship building and open communication between farmers, extension workers, researchers, interest groups and policy-makers. The Egyptian government must properly establish and resource the pivotal role of VEWs within the extension system to meet its strategic aims of modernising agriculture, developing food security and improving the livelihoods of rural inhabitants.
Originality/Value: This paper captures the unique perspectives of government research, extension and education workers involved in agricultural development at a time directly after the 2010 revolution, when they were able to more openly reflect on the past and present situations.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D09317
Notes:
Online from Goldman Environmental Foundation. 2 pages., "In a country with growing socioeconomic inequality and human rights violations, Berta Caceres (d. 2016) rallied the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras and waged a grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world's largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam."
13 pages., Via online journal., Blogs are a type of social media that present a unique opportunity to provide information to a large audience without the constraints of traditional media’s gatekeeping barriers. Within agriculture, several studies have examined agricultural blogs but not from the perspective of blog readers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to describe the uses and gratifications of agricultural blog readers. This study used a descriptive survey research design and online questionnaire to assess agricultural blog readers’ demographics, Internet and blog use, attitudes toward agriculture, and motivations for reading blogs. Findings indicated most respondents had direct experience in agriculture and were supportive of the industry. The strongest motivations for accessing agricultural blogs were to find out what other people think about important issues or events and to find alternatives not covered by traditional news sources. Blogs proved to be a useful source of information, but more should be done to expand reach beyond those in the industry. Additional research is needed to more fully describe agricultural blog readers’ uses and gratifications.
Mingliang Guo (author), Xiangping Jia (author), Jikun Huang (author), Kumar, Krishna (author), Burger, Nicholas E. (author), and Center for Resources, Environment and Food Security, China Agricultural University
center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences
RAND
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2015
Published:
Elsevier
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 16 Document Number: D10463
8 pages., Via online journal., We collaborate with the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to examine the effects of farmer field schools (FFS) on the knowledge acquisition by farmers in rice production in Anhui, China. The intensification of China’s agricultural production has raised widespread environmental concerns. Lack of advisory services to increase awareness and knowledge has been found to be the primary constraint to improving farming and environmental outcomes. However, training millions of small farmers is a significant challenge. To impart the knowledge of sustainable and low-carbon farm management, the MOA recently piloted a FFS program through its public extension system. A participatory approach to rural advisory services, FFS was initiated by the Food and Agriculture Organization during the late 1980s in Asia, and at present is being practiced in more than 90 developing countries. However, the effectiveness of the FFS program has not been conclusively demonstrated, and the results of previous impact evaluations have varied greatly according to evaluation methods. A major drawback of previous studies has been selective participation in the program, leading to biased estimates of program effects. We use an RCT to overcome these problems. The results are heterogeneous: FFS effectively improved farmers’ knowledge of pest management and agro-environment; however, we find no effects on nutrient management and cultivation knowledge. Furthermore, the effects were smaller for female and old participants. Being a “best-design” approach of agricultural extension initiated by FAO, FFS faces challenges to be “best-fit” in China, where urbanization and agricultural transformation are emerging.
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."
This study empirically examined the effects of the participatory approach on the adoption of new crop varieties and agricultural practices. Particularly, we focused on the social network structure and examined how the introduced technologies diffused through networks in rural Ethiopia. Our empirical results indicate that if farmers knew and trusted fellow participants, the probability of adopting a new variety increased by 25 percentage points. However, this network had no statistical impact on the diffusion of new agricultural practices. We conclude that the participatory approach has great potential in the adoption of new crop varieties through the social networks of farmers in Ethiopia.
