ITU’s Missing Link Hypothesis forwards that investments on last mile infrastructure development and utilization from the backbone should be made by agencies who deliver basic services such as health, agriculture, education etc.

This begs the question, will ICT technology and services ever be a viable investment destination for the agriculture sector. The agriculture sector is as informatized as other sectors. Hence investments will have to be made. Examples of these range from equipping extension services with digital tools to linking farm production with commodities trading. Nonetheless, can the farmer-producer and his organization be expected to readily make these investments? Hardly, because of the economies of scale are lacking. But there may be other reasons as well:

The commodity that ICT carries is information and knowledge. Indeed, money values can now be attached on this vital commodity, but their nature is ephemeral, not material. Information and knowledge are intangible. Hence, there is lesser propensity to invest in them.

Producers’ associations may have a knowledge dimension. However, they are not yet knowledge organizations since the commodities that they deal with are actual produce, i.e., rice, corn, vegetables, bananas, coffee, etc. Thus, information and knowledge fall way below their list of investment priorities compared to fertilizers, tractors, barns and post-harvest facilities. (Not too long ago, development agencies also had information and communication divisions way below their list of critical units for program planning and budgeting.)

Third, ICT is considered both as a development sector and a development theme. As a theme, it is considered a public good, a utility, and its funding is relegated to public agencies. Up to now, farmers associations still depend on the government for the construction of farm to market roads.

But then again, I may be wrong and contradicted by on-the-ground developments as we upload these posts.

Peter has a point. The rural-urban dichotomy may not be that appropriate when we look at ICT and producer's organizations from a climate change lens. In reality, extreme weather events may lower food production in some areas but may also increase production in some areas. Communities that are in the direct path of a typhoon may suffer immense crop damage, but provinces in the periphery benefit from the added rainfall. And a typhoon doesn't distinguish between a rural, a peri-urban, or an urban community

A more relevant factor may be vulnerability or resiliency (at the other end of the continuum). Hence, the appropriate question would be, how does ICT enable climate change adaptation in high risk, vulnerable communities.

Glad to see you here, Anandaraja. It may be part of Benefits 3 and 6 but perhaps we should include "Capacity Development of Individual Members and the Association as a Whole" as another benefit if only to highlight its importance.

Nicely put, Lalaine. These points are mirrored in Module 8 of the the World Bank's ICT in Agriculture Sourcebook, which is downloadable. I wonder if you can share personal experiences of farmer's organizations working better with ICT.

Hi, Bry. I guess the case that you shared with us highlights the difference between producers and resource managers, particularly in the marine or fisheries sector. Marine products are harvested but need not be produced or cultured. Nevertheless, producers need to become resource managers and vice versa since the link between food security and resource management has been underscored in these times of climate variability, extremes and uncertainty. The sharing and reuse of climate change knowledge through ICT may facilitate in the convergence of roles among producers and resource managers.

Hi, Adrian. Ten years ago, an FAO Expert's meeting held in Bangkok declared that information and communicati0on technology has elements of both: the old and the new; the conventional and the sophisticated; the analog and the digital. Hence, we still consider community radio as ICT. Nevertheless, you know as well as I do that 10 out of 10 farming households in the Philippines have mobile phones. We can assume that among farmer's associations, the majority of its members carry mobile phones in their back pockets or skirt pockets.

Thanks for bringing this up, Andy. I do recall that Busuanga was one of the first pilots for the Tambili Project sponsored by UNESCO and DANIDA during the nineties. Tambuli (or conchshell) has been touted as an early ICT success story. The project concept was to provide small farming and fishing communities with low-cost, low-powered FM transmitters that would generate localized community radio programming and would become the voice of farmers' associations, mother's clubs and out of school youth. The project was headed by veteran rural farmcaster Ka Louie Tabing? Based on your post, it appears that it wasn't that effective. Is that the case?

In addition to the organizations that Michael mentioned, I would include resource governance associations as well as federations(i.e. an organization made up of organizations or a network of networks). In the Philippines we have Irrigators Associations, Protected Area Management Boards, Watershed Management Councils representing the former and local, municapal and provincial Agriculture and Fisheries Councils representing the latter. Resource governance associations made up of producers serve a self regulating function particularly in resource poor or limited areas. Their role as such have been highlighted in recent years due to extreme weather events such as drought and floods. And it has been demonstrated, time and again, that ICT, ranging from the humble rural radio to the 3G mobile phone, has assisted their members in sharing El Nino forecasts, disaster alerts, even adaptation strategies such as crop diversification.