Dear all,

Thanks for the contributions! We found some points very interesting.

Nafia mentioned a point TECA is especially attentive about. We try to make sure that the practices and technologies uploaded on TECA are in an easy non-academic language and are illustrative through images and videos.

It is also important that the information should come from trusted sources. For this reason institutions and not individuals are allowed to upload materials on TECA.The focus on businesses transactions and access to market for smallholder farmers is also very important. On TECA we cover this topic in the category “post-harvest and marketing”, but is definitely a topic which needs more focus. Probably there are better ICT tools than a knowledge base to assist people in these issues.

From a global perspective it is difficult to address the needs of single local communities. Actors on the ground are essential in assisting them: they are more trusted as they know the local settings and communities. There are different steps and actors passing on information. We think as a globally operating actor it is important to collaborate with institutions working on the ground, who have the capacity of involving communities. ICTs have to be easily accessible, adaptable and transferable to meet different local needs and institutional settings.

Hello everybody,

I'm happy to join this conversation!

My name is Valeria Contessa and I’m currently working in FAO on TECA (Technologies and practices for small agricultural producers - http://teca.fao.org). TECA combines a free online knowledge base for small-holder practices and a discussion forum and is managed by FAO. It provides famers as well as people working with small-holder farmers practical information on validated agricultural practices, in an easy format and language, in English, Spanish and French. The information is provided by development and research organisations. Through TECA’s online forums users can interact, exchange ideas and find solutions to challenges faced by small-holder farmers. The website has over 650 website visits a day. Most users access the website through search engines like Google.

Through a partnership between the Grameen Foundation and FAO, the TECA content is used to repackage information and to share it with farmers in Uganda through a network of community knowledge workers by using mobile phones. This allowed the Grameen Foundation in Uganda to use information from TECA to reach more than 250,000 farmers via smart phone.

We are aware that agriculture differs from region to region and village to village and it is a challenge to address the specific information needs of remote farmers in a particular environment. From an ICT provider’s view we would be interested to discuss the following questions:

To the farmers and practitioners working with family farms in this forum, where do you get your information on agricultural practices from?

From your experiences, have you used web-based information to improve agricultural practices of family farmers?

What should a web-based tool provide to be useful for small holder farmers and extension workers?

Thanks a lot,

Valeria