Accessing, sharing and communicating agricultural information for development: Emerging trends and issues

Information Development

Volumn 25, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 260-271

  Ballantyne, Peter ^a  

^a INTERNATIONAL LIVESTOCK RESEARCH INSTITUTE   (Ethiopia)

Author keywords

Agricultural development; Agricultural extension; Agricultural information; Agricultural research; Communication; Farmer knowledge; Information and communication technologies; Innovation systems; Intellectual property rights; Knowledge sharing; Libraries; Open access; Rural development; Social media

Indexed keywords

EID: 70449433476     PISSN: 02666669     EISSN: 17416469     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0266666909351634     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. Agenda 21 Chapter 40 of the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 argues that everyone is a decision-maker: www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/english/agenda21chapter40.htm
2. An earlier version of this paper was prepared for the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR).
3. NPK represents the key constituent chemical elements Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K) used in plant fertilizers. http://www.plantadvice.co.uk www.plantadvice.co.uk
4. The www.e-agriculture.org portal aims to bring cases and people together. A DFID-funded effort is www. dcrn.org focusing on the evidence base for ICT and communication investments. GFAR's www.egfar.org has recently been upgraded to make available the knowledge base accumulated in the past ten years or so. The websites of regional agricultural information systems affi liated to GFAR contain many case studies and experiences. The IAALD blog - http://iaald.blogspot.com carries news and updates from around the world.
5. The next global get together is the 2010 IAALD World Congress in Montpellier. Regional meetings are regularly organized by IAALD chapters (Africa) and partners (AIBDA, USAIN) and by the regional agricultural research networks affi liated with GFAR.
6. World Bank. 2007. Enhancing agricultural innovation: How to go beyond the strengthening of research systems. Washington DC. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTARD/Resources/EnhancingAgInnovationebook.Pdf
7. http://www.ruralforum.info/documents/presentations/wg-3.7_werblow.pdf
8. Hall, A. 2006. 'New insights into promoting rural innovation: Learning from civil society organizations about the effective use of innovation in development, UNU-MERIT. http://www.innovationstudies.org/docs/ www.innovationstudies.org/docs/ final_technical_report.pdf
9. Waters-Bayer, A. et al. 2006. Recognizing and enhancing local innovation processes. Paper for Innovation Africa Symposium, Kampala, Uganda, 20-23 November. www.innovationafrica.net/pdf/s6_waters-bayer_full.pdf
10. Salles-Filho, S. 2007. Concepts, policy elements, and regional strategies for the development of institutional innovation. San José, Costa Rica: IICA, FORAGRO,GFAR. http://infoagro.net/shared/docs/a2/InstitInnovhttp://infoagro.net/shared/docs/a2/InstitInnov.pdf
11. World Bank. 2007. Enhancing agricultural innovation: How to go beyond the strengthening of research systems. Washington. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTARD/Resources/EnhancingAgInnovationebook.pdf
12. Kristjanson, P. et al. 2009. Linking international agricultural research knowledge with action for sustainable development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(13): 5047-5052. doi:10.1073/pnas. 0807414106.
13. Science Council. 2005. Science for agricultural development: Changing contexts, new opportunities. Rome: CGIAR. www.sciencecouncil.cgiar.org/fileadmin/user_upload/sciencecouncil/Reports/SfAD_Entire_Doc.pdf
14. Waters-Bayer, A. et al. 2006. 'Recognizing and enhancing local innovation processes.' Paper for Innovation Africa Symposium, Kampala, Uganda, 20-23 November. www.innovationafrica.net/pdf/s6_waters-bayer_full.pdf
15. See www.prolinnova.net/fld.php
16. See www.bioversityinternational.org/Themes/Communities_and_Livelihoods
17. See www.linkinglearners.net/
18. See for example: Ballantyne, P.G. 2002. 'Collecting and propagating local development content: Synthesis and conclusions'. Research Report 7. The Hague: IICD. www.iicd.org/articles/IICDnews.import1878
19. See the work of Paul Van Mele and colleagues at WARDA: www.warda.org/warda/newsrel-videopower-jun09.asp/ http://iaald.blogspot.com/search/label/warda
20. There are many places to fi nd information. FAO facilitates a global platform - http://www.e-agriculture.org/ E-ForAll documents efforts to use ICTs to empower the rural poor - www.e-forall.org. The DCERN 'impact of communication in development' portal has an agriculture section with a review of efforts in this area - http://www.dcern.org/portal/index.asp?portal=3. FAO's 'Bridging the Rural Digital Divide' website contains cases and good practice - www.fao.org/rdd/.The Indian-based i4donline website has news on ICTs in agriculture - www. i4donline.net/news/news.asp?catid=1. Policy documents from donors also contain examples and discussion. See for example: CIDA. 2004. 'Linking agriculture and ICT sectors in the context of poverty reduction'. Ottawa: CIDA.
21. Norrish, P., S. Batchelor and C. Garforth. 2007. Agriculture, natural resources and livelihoods policy - the evidence based need for good communication. Reading, UK: Gamos. www.dcern.org/portal/index. asp? portal=3
22. See for example: Singh, S. 2006. Selected success stories on agricultural information systems. Bangkok: APAARI. www.apaari.org/documents/publications/ss_2006_01.pdf
23. See: http://www.e-forall.org
24. See: http://www.vercon.sci.eg/Vercon_en/vercon.asp
25. See: http://www.openacademy.ph
26. See: http://about.extension.org
27. See: http://www.b2bpricenow.com
28. See: http://www.col.org/L3Farmers
29. See www.telecentre.org for information and updates from around the globe.
30. A national governmental example is http://dacnet.nic. in/; a private example is www.kacekenya.com; regional examples are www.esoko.com/ and http://www.wa-agritrade. net/. The ICT Update newsletter of CTA reports on developments worldwide - http://ictupdate.cta.int/. See also http://iaald.blogspot.com/search/label/markets and http://iaald.blogspot.com/search/label/phones for more resources.
31. The section draws on work commissioned by the CGIAR ICT-KM Program. See: Ballantyne, P.G. 2008. 'Making CGIAR research outputs available and accessible as IPGs.' Paper for CGIAR Agricultural Research Public Goods Workshop, Maputo, Mozambique, 27 November. www.sciencecouncil.cgiar.org/fi leadmin/user_upload/sciencecouncil/EVENTS/AGM08IPG_WRKSHOP/BallantyneW.ipg4sciencecouncil.pdf
32. ACIAR. 2006. 'ACIAR and public funding of R&D: submission to the Productivity Commission study on public support for science and innovation'. Canberra: ACIAR. www.aciar.gov.au/publication/IAS41.
33. See the CGIAR ICT-KM Program 'triple-A' initiative: http://ictkm.wordpress.com/tag/aaa/
34. CGIAR Science Council. 2006. Positioning the CGIAR in the Research for Development continuum. Rome: CGIAR. http://www.sciencecouncil.cgiar.org/publications/pdf/reportofr4dwebsite.pdf
35. Ryan, J. 2006. 'International Public Goods and the CGIAR niche in the R for D continuum.' In: Positioning the CGIAR in the Research for Development continuum. Rome: CGIAR Science Council. www.sciencecouncil. cgiar.org/publications/pdf/reportofr4d website.pdf
36. CGIAR Science Council. 2006. op cit.
37. Campbell, A. and N. Schofield. 2007. The getting of knowledge: a guide to funding and managing applied research. Land & Water Australia. http://lwa.gov.au/products/pk071243
38. A good place to locate open access journals is http://www.doaj.org/; open access repositories are listed at http://roar.eprints.org/; this open access can generallybe searched online at http://www.oaister.org/
39. See http://www.ciard.net
40. http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm
41. While other forms of content and outputs also need to be made open, the open access movement is very much focused on scholarly literature, particularly journal articles.
42. The Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org) lists more than 200 agriculture titles.
43. See explanation and links to different programs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_open_access_journal.
44. Kirsop, B. et al. 2007. Access to scientifi c knowledge for sustainable development: Options for developing countries. Ariadne (52) www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue52/kirsop-et-al.
45. See www.fao.org/agris/ for information on the new approach as well as links to tools, training, standards, etc.
46. Borrero, A. et al. 2007.'Scholarly publishing initiatives at the International Rice Research Institute: linking users to public goods via open access'. http://pkp.sfu.ca/ocs/pkp2007/index.php/pkp/1/paper/view/37
47. IAALD. 2009. IRRI science more accessible with open licenses and social media. AgInfo News from IAALD. http://iaald.blogspot.com/2009/05/irri-science-moreaccessible- with-open.html
48. See for example: www.opendatafoundation.org, http:// sciencecommons.org, www.openformats.org, www. openscience.org, http://creativecommons.org
49. See the work of FAO and partners at: http://www.fao.org/aims
50. "Really Simple Syndication" but sometimes "Rich Site Summary" - a tool to automatically publish web content as feeds that people can subscribe to, or re-publish. See description at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rsshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rss
51. GTZ. 2008. The participatory web - new potentials of ICT in rural areas. www.gtz.de/en/themen/laendlicheentwicklung/15081.htm. See also http://iaald.blogspot.com/search/label/social_media.
52. See for instance the CTA Director's blog at http://neun.cta.int/; news blogs of IAALD (http://iaald.blogspot. com), ILEIA (http://familyfarming.typepad.com/) and CABI (http://cabiblog.typepad.com/hand_picked/); the agricultural biodiversity blog at http://agro.biodiver. se/; or the science blogs of Nature at www.nature.com/ blogs/.
53. See www.agrifeeds.org/ which provides an aggregation service. 54. FARA is a good example: http://www.fara-africa.org/knowledge-base/international-news-feeds/; see also the DFID-funded research for development portal at www. research4development.info/
54. See http://about.extension.org in the USA and http:// www.e-extension.gov.ph/ in the Philippines.
55. See http://iaald.blogspot.com/search/label/sharefair09 for more postings and commentary on the issues discussed.