TECA, una iniciativa de tecnologías agrarias validadas para los pequeños agricultores basada en sistemas agropecuarios.

Sumario:

Este artículo explica cómo la nueva tecnología de la información y la comunicación (TIC) y la gestión de la información y la comunicación (GIC) pueden ser usadas para tener en cuenta la diversidad agroecológica y facilitar una creciente transferencia de tecnologías entre zonas homogéneas. La FAO ha demostrado que las nuevas estrategias de las TIC y las GIC en el campo de la investigación agraria puede ser exitosas sólo si tiene como base los sistemas agropecuarios, con su contexto y su medio, para catalogar y recabar información sobre tecnologías para los pequeños productores. La iniciativa Tecnología para la Agricultura (TECA) y sus asociados han desarrollado una base de datos mundial de tecnologías exitosas que comprende todos los sistemas agropecuarios dominantes en las regiones en desarrollo.

Introduction

The attempts to create global databases of technologies or collection of technologies are not new. But there are some key point to take into account in order not to waste time and resources when trying to document a technology of find a solution to a specific technology intervention. TECA is an FAO initiative that aims at improving access to information and knowledge about available proven technologies in order to enhance their adoption in agriculture, livestock, fisheries and forestry thus contributing to food security, poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

Many databases do not offer proven technologies, those which have been applied and produced successful results. In many instances when a good technology solution is available the detailed description is missing, incomplete, or it does not include a picture, a design, or other kind of materials that were produced during the extension process and were instrumental in its success. The source of information is not always credited, and above all, the context in which the technology is developed is not documented.

The context and the environment are essential to understanding the success of a technology and whether it is worthy its reproduction in other places. Before the launch of TECA in 2002, the country and the regional geographic information or the commodity where the main options used to classify agricultural technologies. The development of TECA has brought with it a new way of conceiving the documentation and transfer of technology using a platform that has overcome all previous barriers.

Encourage the use of available solutions

Developing countries cannot simply import and apply knowledge from outside by obtaining, e.g., equipment and seeds. Not every country needs to develop cutting-edge technologies, but every country needs domestic capacity to identify a technology's potential benefits and to adapt new technology to its needs and constraints. This accurately describes the challenge many national agricultural research systems (NARS) are facing and, given their usually limited resources, the utilisation of available solutions would be the comparative advantage especially of the weaker systems.

Using technology developed elsewhere avoids unnecessary duplication by capitalising on available knowledge, focuses on applied and adaptive rather than basic research, and tends to favour the use of proven technologies within a framework of South-South cooperation, hence reducing the need for technology validation in the recipient country. This is especially true when transferring technologies across similar biophysical and socioeconomic settings. The heterogeneity of different agro-ecological zones is a prime obstacle to the transfer of technologies from one region to another.

A progressive contextualization of technologies is associated with an increased complexity of the technology assessment and transfer approach. By the same token, technologies in the post-harvest segment of the production to consumption chain are less contextual than primary production technologies and the livestock subsystem is less location specific than the crop subsystem of the farming or production system. A range of concepts for the description and categorisation of homogeneous environments and systems have been developed to facilitate policy-making, to guide investments and to identify and transfer approaches and technologies. An example is the Global Farming Systems Study (GFSS) by FAO and the World Bank (Farming Systems and Poverty: improving farmers' livelihoods in a changing world. Dixon et al. FAO 2001).

Global Farming Systems Study

Against the backdrop of the agro-ecological diversity barrier to technology transfer, the aforementioned Global Farming Systems Study provides a suitable framework to increase transferability of technologies. Firstly, the study identifies broad types of farming systems (based on resource base, climate, landscape, farm size and tenure, activities and livelihood patterns, technologies, and farm management and organisation) which are prevalent in all developing regions. Secondly, it defines regional farming systems across national boundaries. Thirdly, it prioritizes these systems on the basis of their potential for poverty reduction and for agricultural growth. Though there are bound to be discrepancies as to the geographical delineation of the actual subsystems if serious ground-truthing should be applied, the study's level of detail is a convenient compromise between methodological rigor and user-friendliness.

What are Global Farming Systems?

How to use the Global Farming Systems framework?

To identify promising approaches and technologies that will contribute to food security, poverty reduction, and economic growth goals.

What Farming Systems are there?

Based on the criteria of (a) available natural resource base and (b) dominant farm activities and household livelihood pattern, the following seven broad types of farming systems are prevalent, to a greater or lesser degree, in the developing regions: (i) irrigated farming systems, embracing a broad range of food and cash crop production, (ii) wetland rice based farming systems, dependent upon monsoon rains supplemented by irrigation, (iii) rainfed farming systems in humid areas of high resource potential, characterised by a crop activity (notably root crops, cereals, industrial tree crops - both small scale and plantation - and commercial horticulture) or mixed crop-livestock systems, (iv) rainfed farming systems in steep and highland areas, which are often mixed crop-livestock systems, (v) rainfed farming systems in dry or cold low potential areas, with mixed crop-livestock and pastoral systems merging into sparse and often dispersed systems with very low current productivity or potential because of extreme aridity or cold, (vi) dualistic (mixed large commercial and small holder) farming systems, across a variety of ecologies and with diverse production patterns, (vii) coastal artisanal fishing, often mixed farming systems, and (viii) urban based farming systems, typically focused on horticultural and livestock production.

TECA makes it possible and easy

TECA incorporates the options of the farming systems at a global and regional level in developing countries when cataloguing technologies on-line. One of the main challenges of the initiative was to design a way to facilitate the use and the knowledge of farming systems even when the documentalist or researcher is not very aware of them. This is possible in TECA through two mechanisms. Firstly, the use of clickable maps that are available at global and regional level, which is completely visual and goes beyond national borders. Secondly, the user has the possibility to read a short summary of every farming system mapped with a brief description and its main characteristics.

Figure 1. Global map with farming systems.

Every color represents a different farming systems. For the global map the farming systems displayed are the following: Irrigated, Wetland Rice Based, Smallholder Rainfed Humid, Smallholder Rainfed Highland, Smallholder Rainfed Dry/Cold, Dualistic, Coastal Artisanal Fishing. In the South Asia and Pacific regional farming system map there are eleven options and in the Sub-Saharan Africa fifteen. In the Web site there are other regional maps for East Europe and Central Asia , Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.

Different users, different services

We make a different in TECA between the general users of the Web site that have free access to information and knowledge on proven technologies for small scale farmers and partners. There are many different options to collaborate with the initiative as a partners. Partners have access to the Intranet where they can use the tools developed by an interdisciplinary team to document technologies on-line in a template that enables the partner to attach pictures and various types of files and to use always the farming system classification.

Partners can benefit from free support and maintenance of the central database installed in FAO headquarter's servers, or they can request the code and the structure of the database to install this powerful tool in their on servers and Web sites. TECA also offers other additional