How to make information Demand Driven?

Thanks for this post, Janaki. We have planned to talk about making content demand driven next week, but this is an interesting lead in to that. It is quite difficult to make content demand driven without discussing what types of content are demanded. In other threads market information has been mentioned quite a bit. What other kinds of information are highly demanded?

How to make information demand driven? Last week forum participants' began discussing how it is possible to make information more demand driven. Among the main related questions and issues raised were: • How is it possible to empower rural communities- men, women, and children- through the use of ICT? In particular, how is it possible to minimize the time necessary to transfer agricultural information and technologies from knowledge producers to knowledge users? • To what extent has the use of ICT improved access to education and employment? • How can we catch people's attention on e-agriculture programmes? Key Factors: • Asha Singhal underlined that in order to meet rural communities' expectations, and therefore to make information more demand driven, it is necessary to evaluate the level of literacy of the community in which the programme has to be implemented so that the programme's structure can fit the community's needs. Moreover, every programme has to be designed to be attention grabbing as well as to be regularly monitored in order to catch implementation problems and/or new content more relevant to the community. Clare O'Farrell brought up a similar issue in the "Innovative systems' topic. • Ujah Oliver Chinedu underlined that substantial investment in developing-country ICT is necessary to "empower agricultural agents' as intermediaries between knowledge producers and knowledge users. • Several users suggested that ICT use in agriculture should lead to the achievement of food security. Ramadhar specifically raised the issue of using ICT to promote good practices across the world, and that this is particularly important for sustainable and eco-friendly agricultural practices in the light of problems such as global warming. • Side by side participation by both governmental and non-governmental institutions is necessary to bridge the information gap between the national and the local levels. • Participatory ICT tools such as video conferences can also facilitate communication. Challenges Faced: • Janaki Krishna mentioned that many rural communities do not participate in ICT initiatives because of the lack of demanded content, ie detailed information on governmental programmes in rural areas as well as region-specific information on "agricultural insurance, agricredits, agrimarkets, agripricing, and agri-inputs'. Other users suggested that once this type of information is provided, farmers will feel more encouraged to participate actively in information sharing activities. • The lack of e-agriculture schools was also indicated as another hindering factor towards the diffusion of practical information about agri-inputs and their management. • Farmers' participation in the above-mentioned structures and/or programmes can also be blocked by the lack of the necessary infrastructure for the implementation of these programmes. Francesca Solmi E-agriculture.org Team

This weeks topic about demand led information interests me because there are two things that come to my mind - there are more than two but in my head I like to simplify it to two :) The first implies we take a 'systems' approach, like links in a chain - consumer-retailer-farmer-extension-research could be considered one system. In this example we see that each tier requires their own information inputs and means to communicate - admittedly consumers communicate passively, they don't speak out but they register their desires through point of sale figures in local as well as supermarkets. The second topic, one that interests me personally but has received little focus lately amidst the buzz that surrounds ICTs (predominantly Internet and mobile phones), is that of farmer capacities to communicate their knowledge. The fact, for it is a fact, that farmers are knowledge brokers, innovators and entrepreneurs themselves has not had a lot of attention in the e-ag debate. For me, providing support for farmers to document and articulate, even copyright, their knowledge is one exciting area and where ICTs make this all the more possible. Are there others sharing this interest?

Hello all, I'm trying to respond to the question posed: "How can we make the provision of agricultural information more demand driven?" I personally find this a very tough question to deal with. I'm afraid I will end up posing mor questions than I answer! It is easy to say that a piece of content needs to be produced in response to a certain demand, or a need, or a wish, or a desire. The challenge is to align the right content with the right demand, at the right time, etc ....? How do people do that? One assumes that content that results from a needs assessment will be more demand-driven (if the needs were properly articulated, understood and translated into the product, and if the customer has not already found some other content to meet her needs). One approach could therefore be to improve needs assessments and require evidence they were carried out, and then acted upon. There's an assumption in this question that the agricultural content currently provided is not very demand driven or can be made more demand-driven ..... I wonder if anyone in this community can share an example of content that is not demand driven.....? All content, even something that looks to be supply driven, is produced according to some demand. But is it the right demand? There are surely many people for whom the information available, or accessible, is neither driven by their demands nor are they able to influence it. It was created for some other, probaly legitimate, demand. Is it these people and their unmet demands we want as the drivers? Who are they? How do we empower them to influence the information producers? I think there are many different people with different demands and depending on the one we discuss, the argument will be different. A research article that may be considered useless - and supply-driven - by a farmer somewhere may be highly valued by another researcher somewhere else. Who decides if this article is demand driven enough and how could we assess this? Should we only produce content that is driven by the demands of farmers? We can also give priority to certain types of demands, discouraging content that is for low priority (supply-driven) demands..... and encouraging content that someone considers to be more demand-driven. How do we decide which demands we will be driven by? One answer is to manipulate the incentives to information production. We can push content providers in certain directions, so they are driven by certain demands. We can make them respond to the demands we want them to be driven by. For example: - We can empower the 'consumers' - by giving them control of the money. In Uganda for example, farmers can decide who in the 'extension' system is selected to provide information to them. Information providers that are not driven by the farmers' demands will go out of business - or have to find another market. - We can encourage certain types of content and channels. If researchers are rewarded for producing farmer recommendations and radio shows instead of academic articles, the academic journals may go out of business. - we can give representatives of the intended beneficaries power and influence over the information producers. ie, by giving them seats on boards and committees where they can veto products that are not driven by desirable demands. - we can 'amplify' the voices of a group so its needs are so loud that everybody listens to it. In many places, we can see groups that got together - farmer associations, private producers, cooperatives - to have a bigger impact. Some build their own information products to meet, and promote, their own specific demands. Why try to drive someone else's product when you can make your own? - we can encourage and empower people whose demands are normally not heard - farmers perhaps - to express their needs; also putting mechanisms in place for this information to be brought to the attention of information providers (who also need to be sensitized to actually pay attention to it). Using ICTs to empower local rural communities certainly seems to be a promising move in this direction. For me therefore, the question is not how to become more demand driven, but how to identify which demands to be driven by, and then which 'levers' to pull that will get the desired behaviour we want ... In my experience, selecting among and responding to different information demands often takes you to the heart of a product's - or an organisation's - fundamental business model. ?? i hope this does not confuse us all even more! best regards Peter

Based on my own experience, I fully agree with these views. In any agricultural developmental programme including information and communication technology, we must have a farmer-centric approach, an approach that is the centrepiece of our activities in Bihar Farmers Commission (INDIA) Ramadhar Chairman Bihar Farmers Commission, Patna (INDIA)

In response to Clare O'Farrell, about farmer capacities to communicate their knowledge. ILEIA has developed a manual to encourage farmers, NGOs and other to systematise, document and then communicate their knowledge and experiences. See http://documentation.leisa.info/ where the manual is available to download at no cost. We are also running a Documentation Programme aiming to encourage more systematisation of experiences - facilitating documentation workshops (on demand!) and evaluating different types/methods of documentation. I am happy to answer any queries relating to this. I know PROLINNOVA are also promoting Farmer-led Documentation.

I believe that an e-agri forum is an excellent tool in reaching farmers everywhere, because even though we have dirrent ethnicities and backgrounds we face some of the same problems. In addition, we learn from our peers and sharing of best practices is a good educational tool. However, before we get to this point, we need to ascertain how many of our targetted group have access to the medium we intend to use, and whether the information can be sent in other ways that are also interactive. I think we also need to marry agriculture with health, and utilize the health services as a possible dissemination point. Having the foods available and accessible is one thing, biological utilization is another. I think that in linking agriculture to health you may get the "buy-in" that is needed from, not only the farmers, but other members of the community as well. I am Sharmaine Edwards, Director, Nutrition Services, Ministry of Health, Jamaica, West Indies.

I am Patrizia from the Ministry of Health of Italy. I completely agree with Mr Edwards on the importance to link agriculture with health. In fact, all over the world, one of the new topics under discussion and development is "How to include health in all policies", including agriculture. patrizia

greetings and many thanks to all contributors. With regard to the question of "how to make information demand-driven" I would like to raise following issues: - There is a great need to segment users of e-agriculture (who is the user) - What is the role of various agencies in responding to the needs of potential users? and to what extend does coordination/cooperation exist among these proposed partners in agriculture and rural development? -what is the role of local, national, regional and international organizations involved in development - related activities (funding, consulting, implemeting etc.). - It is observed that the interdependance, functional relationships and action syncronization of different actors is a missing element at all levels. - The issue of information needs assessment, client-oriented or farmer-centred and other various participatory approachs are a bit costly and requires more time and skilled staff to tackle and responsively apply. Most developing or under - developing countries do lack such required resources to create demand driven information systems. -Information-generating, packaging and dissemination systems/subsystems are actually under varied development agencies thus limiting the information sharing process among themselves as weel as among other users of agriculural information (as a matter of fact of information of all development sectors. - Making information Demand - driven is an act that requires active information exchange among all development sectors (organizations and agents) on one hand and between each of them and e-information users. This means that it needs an aggressive use of varied formal and informal linkages beforehand so as to make the information more demand -driven. - In terms of agricultural research, there is also a need to sensitize researchers themselves to the needs of different famrers categories and not just for scientific curiousity or the management of their organizations which demand from them research proposals for the sake of the allocation of available resources. This means that there is a need for a shift in the philosophy not only of research. extension, and information but also of agriculutral development policies and strategies.

The idea of providing support for farmers to document and articulate their knowledge and their issues is an area of great interest. Let me share WOUGNET experiences in this area. With the support of CTA, we have been able to provide the 12 women groups we work with in Apac District, Northern Uganda, a mobile phone and a radio cassette. The idea is to use these tools for interactive communication with the experts, either directly or via the Kubere Information Centre (KIC). In each of the groups, the women have received training on how to use and receive SMS. They have also received training on how to record their discussions/meetings on the radio cassette. The idea is that when they are having their group meetings, they tape these meetings and forward the tapes to the Kubere Information Centre. The staff at the centre then extract the questions and pose this questions to the experts. The experts are usually taped as they respond to the respective queries (unless it is a short quick answer), and these responses are played back to the group. Over the course of time, this process has enabled the experts identify the particular areas for which the farmers have need and/or those areas for which information already provided was perhaps not clearly understand or needs to be re-emphasised. The KIC also runs a weekly radio program, and again the questions/issues raised by the farmers are used to tailor the radio programs on a quarterly basis. These same questions and answers are also currently being integrated into the ARENET system that is supported by NAADS/NARO and FAO.