The creation of commercialization opportunities for smallholder farmers has taken primacy on the development agenda of many developing countries. Invariably, most of the smallholders are less productive than commercial farmers and continue to lag in commercialization. Apart from the various multifaceted challenges which smallholder farmers face, limited access to extension services stands as the underlying constraint to their sustainability.
This paper seeks to understand what influences research and extension professionals’ intentions to use AIS approaches and to explore how this can inform implementation and design of more effective AIS. We applied the Reasoned Action Approach through focus groups and structured questionnaires with research and extension professionals from government and non-government organisations in Sierra Leone, where AIS approaches are not widely used although increasingly institutionalised in policy.
Conventional approaches to agricultural extension based on top–down technology transfer and information dissemination models are inadequate to help smallholder farmers tackle increasingly complex agroclimatic adversities. Innovative service delivery alternatives, such as field schools, exist but are mostly implemented in isolationistic silos with little effort to integrate them for cost reduction and greater technical effectiveness.
ICT-driven digital tools to support smallholder farmers are arguably inevitable for agricultural development, and they are gradually evolving with promising outlook. Yet, the development and delivery of these tools to target users are often fraught with non-trivial, and sometimes unanticipated, contextual realities that can make or mar their adoption and sustainability. This article unfolds the experiential learnings from a digital innovation project focusing on surveillance and control of a major banana disease in East Africa which is being piloted in Rwanda.
The study was conducted in Thakurgaon sadar Upazila to determine farmers’ perception of the extent and factors of ICTs effectiveness in transferring farming information. A total of 250 people who were already been taken services from different ICT center was selected as sample respondents following a random sampling technique. Primary data were collected using a predesigned interview schedule.
Participation of actors is essential for achievement of the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With respect to sustainable agriculture the UN has introduced a collaborative framework for food systems transformation encompassing: 1) food system champions identification; 2) food systems assessment; 3) multi-stakeholder dialogue and action facilitation; and, 4) strengthen institutional capacity for food systems governance. The last two actions are the focus of this thesis.
The Newsletter of the Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP) provides regular updates on activities by TAP and its partners, on the projects and on upcoming events. This issue specifically refers to the period from August to October 2021.
The Progress towards Sustainable Agriculture initiative (PROSA) is a framework that seeks to complement ongoing efforts on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and particularly indicator 2.4.1, to support country-level assessments using data already available at the national level. Making agriculture more sustainable – productive, environmentally friendly, resilient and profitable is fundamental, as agriculture remains the main source of livelihood for the majority of the world’s poor and hungry.
Tool 9 provides general information and examples on the latest developments, uses and applications in the area of food biotechnology, and it focuses on genome (or gene) editing. It also provides examples that could help users of this toolkit to explain genome editing, the difference between genetic modification and genome editing and the potential benefits of these new technologies. In addition, it supports users to highlight possible research and development activities ongoing in their own country.
FAO Eritrea, in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture is implementing the national component of a global project entitled “Developing capacity in Agriculture Innovation System project: Scaling up the Tropical Agriculture Platform Framework”.