Question 3 (opens 24 Sept.)

Why do we necessarily need to depend on local ag extension officers?  I think there is valid justification to look at how commercial enterprise will leverage effective design to circumvent the need for another layer of human capacity in rural knowledge transfer.

Absolutely! commercial enterprise can certainly circumvent the need for another layer-- though often ag extension officers are already in the mix, and could benefit from capacity building. 

I'm an advocate of the approach of leveraging existing assets and resources.  In this case, ICT can be used as a "Force Multiplier" when applied to Ag Extension.  Do all of them need face to face interactions to support their farmers?  Can’t many of them use ICTs and reach hundreds of farmers a day rather than tens?  Rather than build an intervention that by-passes traditional Ag Extension, why not use them as an asset (especially if they’re already funded)? 

Now, to BackPack Farmer Kenya’s point, no need to force a fit with the Ag Extension model.  If there’s a better approach that works around them and is still more effective, then that’s great too.

Hi,

in the case of commercial enterprice this would work, it is assumed those on  this level of activity can also afford this level of effective design and probably cheaper, considering productivity.

In the case of the small holder, of which are responsible for over 80% of production, we cannot afford to overlook the need for an intermediary, though incurring more on overhead cost, to bridge the gap between. Most small holders in Africa are illitrate, but with a simple but powerful tool as the mobile phone and an intermediary we can gradually make this very useful group of producers literate and eventually reduce the involvement of that layer of human capacity to the minimum but not outrightly. 

I agree that a commercial business can do this support. Esoko does just this - we have an entire team of experts devoted to profiling, training, supporting and assisting our customers with deployment. And associations, ministries, NGOs, and agribusinesses pay us for this help to better work with their farmers. However, when you are talking about 10,000 farmers and it comes to scaling these operations, that is where the role of a community expert (who could be an ag extension officer) becomes important.  We have seen that it helps to have someone that a farmer can talk to if they have a question or problem in their village. 

Goyal, can I say that videos play an important role in facilitating documentation and learning among small holder farmers? I would be happy if you expound on this. Have you done some impact studies on video Vs adoption?

ICT for Knowledge Generation: The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has developed a decision support system (DSS) mobile app for android phones called Nutrient Management System that helps farmers make decisions on fertilizer usage in his/her crop. IRRI is now expanding this DSS into a Rice Cropping Management System that comprehensively covers rice production cultural management practices from seed to seed factoring in climate variability and extremes.

Challenge: The system still requires an intermediary, the agricultural extension worker, who assists in inputting information required by the DSS on the mobile phone as well as interpreting and contextualizing the decision/options provided by the app. Additionally, android phones are still a luxury even for extension workers.

ICT for Knowledge Documentation and Sharing: The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) conducted the Focused Food Production Assistance to Vulnerable Sectors Project in 2010-2011. A component of that project trained members of indigenous tribes to video capture their local and indigenous agricultural best practice using a Nokia 5230. 

Challenge: The video clips were supposed to be uploaded on YouTube but there were issues raised against open access of indigenous knowledge. Hence, these were instead stored in a content management system with limited access and data security features. 

Sir,

In both instances the intermediary i.e. the Extension officer is highly in play, this challenge is further worsened considering the extension worker: farmer ratio which is very inadequate. Probably training more of school leavers with no jobs could reduce this challenge and training of contact farmers who in turn retrain farmers within their communities.

Secondly, community ICT clinics would need to be setup, another challenge would be power and low cost internet access.

There are indeed several ways how ICTs have enahnced farmer to farmer sharing, digital green being one platform a salready notes, honeybee for recording farmer innovations another, and just direct phonecalls between farmers in rural communities, which in fact is emerging as a very powerful means for information sahring.

In the agriculture development discussion nutrition linked with agriculture is emerging as a new theme. Would anyone have examples of farmer to farmer sharing of nutrition information? any agencies facilitating this among and between farmers?

Information and Communication Technology is key to knowledge generation, documentation and sharing between farmers, this is also the embryo for Innovation.

Let's look at this example, the very few farmers here (Lagos) who have internet access or facility are often more knowledgeable in their various enterprises and tend to ask questions that make their fellow farmers seem outdated when they gather for their regular farmers' meetings. Sometimes these questions asked (of information they already know from their online browsing) is borne out of a show off or 'You-guys-are-archaic' attitude often setoff possibilities in those having challenges and make them want top seek for solutions they never thought were possible, especially when they learn of a simple method of dealing with it. 

The traditional extension system which requires the presence of an extension agent in  remote locations and often the extensioner to farmer ratio is grossly inadequate. ICTs (that is radio inclusive) has proved to be of very important help to farmers, who in turn reach extension agents via phone and the message is disseminated.

75 per cent percent of farmers in the rural areas have phones and so we are moving into that electronic wallet. Here is how the system works; the farmers will get their alerts about the allocation for seeds and fertilizers, they will go to the agro dealer in their own village and they will send that information to the agro dealer, seeds and fertilizers suppliers are also on the electronic platform. Farmers receive an sms alert with their fertilizer allocation thus eliminating the need for corrupt middle men. 

No doubt, use of ICT makes documentation and archiving easy and accessibly at the same time to the interested public. Challenge in emerging nations like mine, however, is power and other supporting infrastructures.