Sustainable intensification (SI) is promoted as a rural development paradigm for sub-Saharan Africa. Achieving SI requires smallholder farmers to have access toinformation that is context-specific, increases their decision-making capacities, andadapts to changing environments. Current extension services often struggle toaddress these needs. New mobile phone-based services can help.
Agricultural extension in the Global South can benefit greatly from the use of modern information and communication technologies (ICT). Yet, despite two decades of promising experiences, this potential is not fully realized. Here, it is reviewed the relevant research literature to inform future investments into agricultural information services that harness the full potential of digital media.The study describes a recently emerging innovation agenda that is, in part, a response to the eventualfailure of many new agro-advisory initiatives.
The objective of the study was to identify a viable trade-off between low data requirements and useful household-specific prioritizations of advisory messages. At three sites in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania independently, we collected experimental preference rankings from smallholder farmers for receiving information about different agricultural and livelihood practices. At each site, was identified socio-economic household variables that improved model-based predictions of individual farmers’ information preferences.
This policy brief shows how digital tools can help to ensure that public money for agricul-tural extension is spent wisely. Governments often fund offices, training centers, and the salaries of extension officers, but cannot eas-ily review the impacts of these expenditures. This is because the activities of extension agents are not monitored systematically. Ex-ension services rarely generate quantitative data on the effects of their work.
Rapid climatic and socio-economic changes challenge current agricultural R&D capacity. The necessary quantum leap in knowledge generation should build on the innovation capacity of farmers themselves. A novel citizen science methodology, triadic comparisons of technologies or tricot, was implemented in pilot studies in India, East Africa, and Central America. The methodology involves distributing a pool of agricultural technologies in different combinations of three to individual farmers who observe these technologies under farm conditions and compare their performance.
The working paper presents a new toolkit for the implementation of a participatory vulnerability assessment (PVA) in rural localities, by introducing the methodology, as well as the findings, from a pilot study in Sokoine (Zepisa, Hombolo Ward) in Tanzania. It is based on a participatory methodological approach and follows a multidimensional conceptualisation of social vulnerability to climate change.
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.
Under the REGATTA Initiative (Regional Portal for Technology Transfer and Action against Climate Change in Latin America and Caribbean) this project seeks to develop actions towards vulnerability and adaptation to climate change assessment in agriculture and water resources in the Andes of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
En los últimos años, han surgido nuevas oportunidades que permiten que las organizaciones de investigación adopten prácticas innovadoras que fomentan la gestión y el intercambio del conocimiento, tanto a nivel interno como entre sus respectivas redes.
Global climate change and food security are complex and closely intertwined challenges. A key requirement for dealing with them successfully is that agriculture becomes more eco-efficient. As researchers work toward this goal, they must always ask, “Efficiency for whom?” Finding answers to this question requires that research be conducted from a systems perspective in a broadly participatory manner involving complex collaborative arrangements.