WorldAgInfo Workshop 1: Knowledge Systems

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https://hdl.handle.net/1813/66329

The objective of this workshop hosted by the World Ag Info Project at Cornell University in Ithaca New York (September 30 - October 2 in 2007) was to identify near-term and medium-term opportunities for strengthening the content of agricultural education/curriculum and information systems to meet the needs of smallholder farmers in areas of the developing world where agriculture lags behind needs. Traditionally called extension, teaching and research, more recently these systems are recognized as complex, interactive activities of knowledge and technology use, generation and exchange among farmers, extension workers, teachers and researchers.

A major workshop objective was to identify the opportunity to give voice and access to smallholders and their information support systems, using new social networking tools for agricultural content development and creating a new agricultural education, information and training matrix.

The 40 attending participants were agricultural scientists with experience in South Asia and Africa, representatives of NGOs specializing in agricultural issues, agricultural ministry representatives, agriculture graduate students from Asian and African countries, agriculture faculty from African and Asian colleges/universities, private sector agriculture representatives, representatives of international agriculture organizations, accreditation specialists.

The materials provided here represent a portion of the outputs from that workshops. Additional materials including presentations and an archive of the project web site can be found on the Internet Archive here.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 33

Water Research & Education Network (WREN)
World Ag Info Project Design Team (World Ag Info Project, 2007)
The international dimensions of water problems magnify the complexity of the water problem: increased use of water from the Blue Nile in Ethiopia creates shortfalls for farmers in the Sudan and Egypt and poor farming practices in Kenya affect the fish catch in Lake Victoria by Tanzanians, Ugandans and other Kenyans. However, trans-boundary and regional water disputes are very real and merit consideration. Although the scope of the water problem is daunting, water scarcity and contamination cannot be ignored. We are proposing to develop an integrated Water Research and Education Network (WREN) that will include African universities, NGOs and government ministries in eastern and southern Africa, the region where the predictions for drought are most dire.
Preparing Universities in Africa and Asia for the New Agriculture
World Ag Info Project Design Team (World Ag Info Project, 2007)
This project has four interconnected components: the first is helping universities and consortia of universities in Africa and South Asia prepare a landscape analysis of the magnitude and country-specific challenges and funding levels to address the issues surrounding the New Agriculture. The second component is to lay out the types of Business Education training that is needed at different levels of the educational ladder for extension workers, and smallholder farmers and input and marketing agencies. The third is to lay out the types of ICT training modules about the New Agriculture that are needed to train extension workers, smallholders, private firms and the Third Sector. The fourth objective is to request bottom up proposals of how public and private universities in Africa plan to respond to the New Agriculture and to increase their emphasis on graduate training within Africa because of the rising cost of overseas graduate education.
Developing Online and Offline Textbook Collections to Support Agricultural Curricula
World Ag Info Project Design Team (World Ag Info Project, 2007)
In many agricultural universities and colleges in the developing world, students do not have adequate access to textbooks for their courses, and often have to wait in long lines at library reserve desks to borrow the few available copies of the textbook. In some cases even the professor must use the library’s copy to prepare his or her lectures, although the available copies are often seriously out of date. Indian universities have addressed this problem to some extent through textbook “rental” centers, which collect a small fee from students for the use of a text for the semester. Applying this model in the electronic environment offers the potential to create digital collections of textbooks which could be made available for a small fee per student. Two types of texts could be added to this collection: 1) textbooks owned and distributed by publishers in electronic form where rights and fees have been negotiated; and 2) open access wikibook content developed by agricultural faculty, students and extension staff. Textbooks in these collections would be distributed to students either on inexpensive laptops (note: partnering with the One Laptop per Child program is one possible model), or content and delivery developed in conjunction with one of the new e-book reader development efforts, e.g. SONY Reader.
Market and Technology Led Curriculum Enhancement at Agricultural Education Institutions in Africa and South Asia
World Ag Info Project Design Team (World Ag Info Project, 2007)
Fund partnerships between selected US and overseas universities to support the transformation of existing undergraduate curriculum in Africa and S. Asia through 1) the development of a series of curricular modules to address the business, market and supply chain information needs of 21st century smallholders, 2) foster the introduction and expansion of experiential learning as part of the educational experience of undergraduate students, and 3) train master trainers to assist in the deployment of these new curricular features.
Five Skill Sets to Develop the Capacity of Women Farmers to Demand and Use Extension Information
World Ag Info Project Design Team (World Ag Info Project, 2007)
Solution Scenario Concept: Women smallholders in developing countries produce an estimated 70 percent of food from semi-subsistence farms, own 1% of land and receive 5-7 percent of extension services. Including women as a minimum number of beneficiaries in extension services will not redress gender inequities in access to reliable to information because women farmers’ needs are so different ffrom the neds of men farmers. Men and women often grow different crops, have different responsibilities in production and marketing, apply different cultivation technologies, and have different objectives for using their produce. Moreover, women play different roles along the marketing chain, as producers, consumers, traders, laborers and retailers of agricultural supplies and their needs for extsnion information are not uniform. The hypothesis of this note is that meeting women smallholders diverse needs for agricultural information requires extension services to establish an on-farm, participatory adaptive research service that generates recommendations developed with and validated by women in all these different capacities. This Solution will harness the proven power of women’s self-help groups as a foundation for woman-centered agricultural extension.
Developing the capacity of extension officers and their organizations to train, work with and support women farmers
World Ag Info Project Design Team (World Ag Info Project, 2007)
Solution Scenario Concept: Extension systems’ widespread neglect of women farmers can be reversed through changes in attitudes of extension personnel and the structures and processes within agricultural institutions to assist them to become accountable to women farmers. While there is ample evidence that women extension professionals are more effective than male professionals in communicating and servicing women farmers, the small numbers of women extension agents (a global average of 15 % according to FAO) requires a strategy that enables male agents to service women farmers as well. This requires a two pronged approach that: builds the skills and changes attitudes of the professionals; and facilitates a process of organizational change to create an enabling environment that supports gender equity and is responsive to the needs of women farmers. Skill building for female and male extension officers on gender, leadership, negotiation, adult literacy, information management, communication and training can develop their abilities to train, work with and support women farmers while simultaneously acting as internal change agents to facilitate processes of change within their organizations. Our hypotheses is that both men and women extension professionals, if provided with suitable, gender-sensitive organizational support, skills and ICT resources, and made accountable for reaching women farmers will deliver better services to women farmers and groups. This Solution would transform existing extension systems to be accountable to women farmers.
The Economic Empowerment of Women in Agriculture in Africa and South Asia
World Ag Info Project Design Team (World Ag Info Project, 2007-10-26)
Solution Scenario Concept: The male bias in the gender mix in Africa’s agricultural institutions is sobering. In ten countries in Africa, 90 percent or more of the agricultural scientists are male (Figure 1). Moreover, the research and knowledge base on how to help increase the economic empowerment of women in Africa is patchy even though women are major producers of food crops, important traders in local markets and diligent workers in non farm employment. Part of this reason for the gender gap is a carry over from early gender research that focused on whether women worked longer hours than men and whether they gained or lost in the commercialization of farming. For example, when Ester Boserup published her path–breaking book Woman’s Role in Economic Development (1970), she charged that women “lose in the development process” because agricultural development projects can lead to an increase in women’s work load and a reduction in the workload of men. But Boserup’s assertion was not supported by rigorous empirical research. To test the Boserup hypothesis, Spencer (1976) carried out a study of an agricultural development project in Sierra Leone and found that the new technology increased women’s work load slightly but the increase was much less than the increase in the workload of adult males and children. Spencer rejected Boserup’s emphasis on the number of hours worked and called for research on the returns per hour of work and the profitability of farming. But after decades of research, there is a lack of understanding on how to help rural women gain economic empowerment through three pathways out of poverty: farming, rural nonfarm employment and migration to market towns and cities.
Off the Grid but in the Know: Advancement through Interactive Radio
World Ag Info Project Design Team (World Ag Info Project, 2007)
Solution Scenario Concept: Many rural communities in Africa still do not have reliable cellular or electrical service, thus members of these communities cannot meaningfully use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to aid advancement. In addition, women in rural communities face gendered barriers to the access and use of ICT-based development initiatives. The AIR (Advancement through Interactive Radio) project seeks to advance women in rural agricultural communities by adding interactivity to community radio. AIR gives community radio listeners, especially women, a voice with which to respond to development programming (such as agricultural extension programs), as well as a mechanism to participate in the creation of programming content. The AIR project is based upon the premise, grounded in development communications theory, that enabling women to publically articulate what they know, and what they wish to know, will advance community development strategies and increase the stature of women in the community. This objective is widely acknowledged as a key component to sustainable development.
Using Video to Improve Information and Knowledge Flows From and Among Smallholders
World Ag Info Project Design Team (World Ag Info Project, 2007)
Solution Scenario Concept: Use the medium of video to convey local information, knowledge, experiences, and needs from small-scale farmers to a broad audience of extension workers, researchers, NGOs, policy makers, and other farmers. The model outlined here provides a way to scale up the local use of video made by farmers as an effective tool for giving “voice” to smallholders.
Community Radio 2.0
World Ag Info Project Design Team (World Ag Info Project, 2007)
Solution Scenario Concept: Extend the Web 2.0 paradigm to the use of Community Radio for the acquisition and dissemination of agricultural related information and education. The basic concept is to provide user generated content (UCG) mechanisms to enhance the use of community radio as a social network.

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