Dear Kashfia, Your views on the PPP model for content creation are very correct. For knowledge management and information dissemination in agriculture, meaningful content can only be created by assimilating data and information from multiple sources such as the government, academic and research institutes and private organisations. Not only data has to be obtained form several sources, keeping the information current and updated requires considerable effort too. Hence, collaborative efforts between government, academic/research institutes, civil society and private organisations, are in my opinion essential for effective creation and dissemination of rich information content, that would be useful for the agriculture community. Getting the collaboration working will be challenging though. The good part however, is that the new developments in ICT (Web 2.0, integration of mobile communications and the internet etc.) facilitate online and remote collaboration considerably, which would certainly make the task of collaboration a lot easier. Regards, Amit Dasgupta.
Submitted by Dr Wyn Richards on Tue, 03/11/2008 - 10:58
Hello Everyone, A quick introduction. I am part of the management team of a new DFID programme called Research Into Use whose principal purpose is to take the best of natural resources research findings and apply them widely for the benefit of resource-poor farming communities in 6 sub-Saharan African countries and 6 countries in Asia. I am personally responsible for communication issues in the 5 year programme - with field practitioners, with global decision makers and with 'infomediaries' in general. We are particularly anxious to promote mechanisms which stimulate demand for information from diverse institutions in the farm to fork system and are conscious of the need to integrate the supply of information with supportive goods and services and an enabling political and economic environment - what the Green Revolution used to call the 'symphony approach'. We are living in remarkable times wth respect to the rapid global availability of emerging ICTs for up- and out-scaling information. I believe one of the challenges we face in the e-agriculture field is how we harness appropriate and currently available ICTs in-counry with those which are likelty to be at hand over the next few months and years - and how these can be integrtaed innovatively with more conventional approaches including use of the media. What might help the e-agriculture meeting in my mind would be to draw boundaries around the 'e' issue. Does it include all ICTs such as mobile telephones, PV, TV/radio etc or should we have a narrower definition? I look forward to contributing to the discussions. Wyn [www.researchintouse.com]