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.
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.
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.
Smallholder farmers across the Global South increasingly need to adapt their farming activities to fast-paced changes, for example, in climate, policy and markets. In many places, public and private agricultural extension services support technological change through trainings and the dissemination of information. The effectiveness of extant ex-tension (advisory) methodologies is, however, challenged by the difficulty of reaching a large and growing clientele with highly diverse information needs.
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.
This study aims to explore how the Positive Deviance approach can be adapted to identify and prioritize rural development interventions for diverse farming households that pursue multiple objectives. We describe the adapted approach, consisting of three research steps, and a case study implementation in Tanzania. Based on this experience, the potential of the Positive Deviance approach for household-specific prioritization of multi-objective development opportunities is discussed