Hi everyone, Dr. Richards you have rightly identified the key words i.e., 'Innovative integration' of the 'available technologies'. As such the scope of ICT should not only include all the available technologies but should also offer an window of innovation to integrate the traditional communication tools to facilitate user participation, ease in adoption and generate continuous interest among the user groups. I believe the technology combination should also take into consideration the issue of local available energy apart from being lower in cost and maintainence. Empowering the user groups in complete ownership of the system is very important. Apart from the technology, which just acts as a tool of communication, I believe the information and knowledge assumes greater importance. What to disseminate? Vs What the user groups require? may ultimately decide the sucesss. Most of the time ICT is used to disseminate what we believe needs to be diseminated rather than putting efforts to understand what is the farmers requirement. This dimension is pointed out by Mr. Phillip as well, in this thread. "Is there a strong desire to get acces to and connection with technology in order to leverage its power - that is to say is the demand driven by the populace? Or, does the community have to be sold on the value of technology and communications infrastructure? I storngly believe that for any system to be sustainable it needs to be demand driven. In India the ITC E Choupal system is a success because in the areas targetted there was a felt need of 'market information'. Once the key demand is met with the other secondary information can flow in as per the priority. Information and knowledge therefore assumes more importance than the ICT, to continuously generate interest among the user groups thus ensuring sustainability of the 'ICT enabled extension system' The green revolution was a great success but lately we learnt its pit falls too. To make the 'e revolution' in agriculture a development milestone which is definitely the need of the hour to ensure food/nutrition security and above all mitigate poverty, we need to have a 'faster learning curve' approach. The wheel need not to be invented every where, it needs to be continuously improved from the learnings accross the globe. Thanks Best wishes Raj

Dear Adjadji, Greetings. Nice to hear from you. Yes illiteracy is a challenge for bringing in the pace of development. But I believe it shouldnot be taken as a bottleneck. In India too we have a serious literacy problem, more so in rural India, however rural India is changing fast with increased market reach, agro-enterprise and development of other sectors. The key thing is market assurance, in agri-enterprise. Once the return of produce is assured then initiating the change process for increased production efficiency, processing & value addition, quality systems becomes very easy. Yes literacy does help at this point to inrease the pace of 'change adoption' or at time helps to mitigate exploitation by private partners. I don't know in which country of Africa you are or the kind of agri-enterprise you are refering, but as a thumb rule the steps to start an agri-venture is to - 1. Understand the value chain, and seek measures to improve the efficiency by integrating process and product innovations, supply chain management and ensuring sustainability. 2. Understand market and developing the marketing strategy, 3. Institution development, management system and finance. I hope I could add bit of dimension to your thoughts. I shall try to suggest you some e tools, in a day or two. Please feel free to get back. Best regards Raj

Hi I am Raj from India. It is a nice platform to initiate, participate and extend the 'Knowledge/information', which I believe is the key intervention for bringing in much desired 'Growth in Agriculture' and making it 'Sustainable', for our rural friends specially 'Farmers'. The 'E' tool if rightly integrated can bridge the gap, not only between 'Lab to land' and 'market to farm' but may also serve as a delivery tool for many other sectors like health, food, governance, disaster management etc. I am a agri-dvelopment professional with interests in food & nutrition, sustainable farming, rural development, enterprise & market development. Shall look forward to exchange learnings.