This article describes the experience of analyzing groups of Colombian fruit farmers’ capacity to collect information and their interest and ability to take advantage of the opportunities offered by information and communication technologies (ICTs). Three cycles were designed to understand the attitudes, skills, and current practices of fruit growers and to define the necessary conditions for effective information sharing. The three cycles involved individual farmers, farmer groups meeting face to face, and virtual meeting with farmer groups. The results contribute to the design of strategies for farmer engagement in the knowledge-sharing online platform of the AES-CE (Acronym in Spanish for Sharing Experiences for Site Specific Agriculture) project, designed to assist growers in improved decision making through sharing of multiple types of information from multiple sources. We find that farmers understand the usefulness of record keeping, but data collection is often imposed externally, and records are not generally used to better manage production. Farmers, overall, were positive towards information sharing and understand the benefits of using information from a wider environment, shared through an ICT platform, but shortage of skills in using these technologies is a serious limiting factor to expansion to a broader scale. We discuss future strategies that can be used to the design and implement ICT platforms which farmers can use to share information and improve their management.
Innovations generally arise out of a network of actors and relationships and network structure determines how effective networks are at fostering innovation. This paper (Part II) presents work to develop a network diagnosis tool for stakeholders involved in agricultural supply chains in Bolivia. The...
Este artículo presenta los resultados alcanzados durante el proyecto de investigación sobre buenas prácticas en gestión del conocimiento para el desarrollo basado en conocimiento, a partir de la aplicación de las tecnologías colaborativas Web 2.0 para la divulgación del conocimiento...
As digitalisation transforms agriculture, the implications of cumulative innovation processes are essential to consider in order to mitigate risk and capitalise on opportunities. One project that involves imagining the future of the sector and aims to develop the necessary tools...
The citrus industry is very important for Pakistan as it is the 4th most important export commodity. There are two product flows in the citrus value chain, one is more traditional with abundant intermediaries, in which contractors, commission agents and...
Digital agriculture is likely to transform productive processes both on- and off- farm, as well as the broader social and institutional context using digital technologies. It is largely unknown how agricultural knowledge providing organisations, such as advisors and science organisations,...