The need for knowledge and improved skills to increase food production in developing countries is clear and present. Recent FAO statistics note that more than 65 low-income countries (90 percent in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa) suffer from inadequate food security, with about 790 million people living in hunger. Another 34 million undernourished people have been identified from countries in transition, mainly in Eastern Europe and the area of the former USSR. All told, as the twentieth century ended, about one in seven people were going hungry. And the prospects for erasing hunger during the first quarter of the third millennium appear daunting. From a current base of slightly over 6.2 billion people, using the high fertility path, the worlds population may exceed eight billion by 2025 and food needs in developing countries which will account for 98 percent of the population increase will double.
The 1996 World Food Summit set a target of reducing by half the number of hungry people in the developing world about 400 million people by the year 2015. The progress achieved during much of the 1990s, however, has tended to cast this goal as being too optimistic. In the 1990/92 period for example, out of a group of 96 developing countries, the number of undernourished was estimated at 830 million people; by 1995/97 this had dropped to 790 million or a decrease of 40 million overall, a seemingly positive result. A closer look at the data revealed that only 37 countries out of the original 96 had actually reduced the number of undernourished by about 100 million people combined overall. Across the rest of almost two-thirds of the developing world, the aggregate number of undernourished actually increased by 60 million. The resulting total net reduction of eight million per year hence reached only 40 percent of the proportional rate of 20 million per year needed to reach the objective. The problem is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa. These sobering results dramatically suggest that unless more effective solutions are found for increasing food production, and better distribution of it, the 2002 World Food Summits repeat goal of halving the number of hungry people by 2015 with a concomitant rate of 22 million per year needed to do so may again fall short. Continuing at the current level would take more than 60 years to reach the Summits target.
Improved communication to strengthen rural learning is one of the immediate methods in which the problem of food security may be addressed. Indeed, over the past thirty years, research findings have consistently demonstrated that audience-oriented communication strategies can play a catalytic role in accelerating the rate of agricultural technology transfer through providing relevant information, changing negative attitudes, and skills training. Initially, small media were mainly used (e.g. video, radio, flip-charts, illustrated pamphlets, village theatre) with content tailored to a given community, province or region. Communication approaches ranged from multimedia campaigns to support for group meetings conducted by extension agents, and materials to strengthen interpersonal communication. Over time, participatory methods were refined to bring in the views of the intended beneficiaries from the start in designing project goals and selecting appropriate communication and adult learning methods to support implementation.
At the turn of the twentyfirst century, as wireless infrastructures span the globe, a growing number of development specialists and agencies argue that appropriate use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) offer alternative solutions to erasing chronic food deficits. Using the Internet to seek out research-based recommendations, combining them with indigenous practices, and then rendering messages for farmers into locally-friendly formats such as vernacular radio, are currently seen as blending the best of older media and emerging technologies.
The challenge in assisting farmers to produce more food implies the need for new technologies, new skills, changed attitudes and practices, and new ways to collaborate. All of this requires that farmers have access to what they consider to be relevant information and knowledge. Participatory communication and education have thus become what many consider to be the key links between farmers, extension, and research, for planning and implementing consensus-based development initiatives. Too often, however, they have been missing links and many projects have failed as a result.
To redress this oversight, the World Bank and FAO have jointly proposed a framework for reforming agricultural knowledge and information systems for rural development (AKIS/RD) wherein farmers are considered to be at the heart of the knowledge triangle. Communication and education, research, and extension consequently become services designed to respond to farmers needs for knowledge to improve their productivity, incomes, welfare and sustainable natural resource management.
The Knowledge Triangle
Adapted from: FAO/World Bank (2000) Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems for Rural Development. Rome: FAO.
