So far, this study has been organized around the five priority areas and their indicators. In this section, this pattern is modified to underline, instead: 1) global forces and agriculture; and 2) the different roles in advancing AKIS/RD played by government, AKIS agencies, private sector AKIS entities, agricultural producers and their organizations, and the media and communications.
Global forces that are affecting all nations demand changes throughout agriculture sectors, particularly in agricultural knowledge and information systems. For example, the Malaysia case study states: "Agriculture shall always remain important and strategic in nature, especially in substituting imports, production of strategic commodities, production of food and in earning foreign exchange."
The global forces affecting agriculture reflect the rapid and innovative changes in the world, many of which are positive but some of which are deeply troubling. These forces include international trade and global competition; population dynamics; scientific and technology development; rapid modern communication technologies; land use, e.g. the loss of arable land and the drift towards degradation of the natural environment; structural changes in institutional development and the redefinition of government’s role in development; the supply of and demand for trained workers; and the increasingly obvious effects of poverty, illiteracy and poor quality of life. The challenge of responding to these forces is rendered even more difficult by limited public sector financial resources.
One response to these global forces is the current effort to improve agricultural research, education and extension systems. The challenge is to help them take on the character of (sub)systems that are engaged more closely among themselves and with the private sector, particularly agricultural producers, in a concerted effort to move closer to the goal of developing an effective, integrated AKIS/RD.
Only national governments can assume socio-economic responsibilities that affect the State as a whole. For example, only they - along with state/provincial and local governments - can ensure that extension services deliver needed public goods, and only they are well placed to promote increased institutional pluralism in extension service provision and to oversee the quality enhancement and assurance necessary for rural development. Only government can make AKIS/RD work for the advancement of agricultural and rural development.
Political will
"It took a change in leadership to inject a new outlook for agriculture in the country," according to the Malaysia case study. The study advocates: "Visioning and strategic planning must be believed and committed to in order for any new plan to work." These statements recall another similar insight, namely that "many development and extension efforts have failed because circumstances favoured frustration and nothing was tried to boost vision, dedication and creative problem solving, all of which cannot be imported" (Blum, 1987). Although the case studies cite excellent projects - e.g. the PNVRA in Cameroon, the extension centres in integrated development projects in Morocco, VERCON in Egypt - at the end of the day the visioning and strategic planning "must be believed and committed to" in order for new plans to work.
The case studies also show that the political will to develop a country’s AKIS/RD may grow out of necessity or as a result of political or economic crisis, as in Cuba, Lithuania and Uganda. They also stress the key interdependencies of government and pluralistic AKIS extension systems. Table 3 gives some of the reasons why government needs AKIS/RD and why AKIS/RD services need government.
Institutional coordination
Government’s convening authority enables it to bring different service providers together to exchange information, develop new partnerships and collaborative mechanisms, and establish acceptable divisions of labour. Such government coordination can improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of pluralistic AKIS/RD services. Table 3 underlines the essential factor of institutional coordination in developing AKIS/RD.
Policy guidance
Policy guidance is necessary, as the present study highlights in Section 3, for several crucial purposes, the first of which is to advance national strategy and a plan for AKIS/RD development and operations. Government also needs to provide guidance in directing the strategy and plan towards the public good. Guidance is also required in continually focusing attention on the economic efficiency and impact of the system.
AKIS/RD requires the rethinking and reorganization of training, research and outreach activities. This means creating or improving synergies among the different agencies. AKIS institutions need to reflect on new strategies that are likely to orient future programmes towards further integration. The Morocco case study notes that, despite successes, the country’s AKIS/RD needs to be adapted.
Many agencies are involved in implementing AKIS/RD without prior permanent identification or a global vision of the objectives. There is often a failure to take into account growers’ expectations, the region-based realities and the situation of the agrosystems. Training, research and outreach actions are stagnant. Programme contents do not always evolve in compliance with the demand and specific needs of the recipients. In addition, outreach is increasingly solicited by other departments for conveying rural development messages with social or environmental connotations. Part of the emerging challenge is to deal with the diversity of individual household priorities and strategies.
Table 3 - Key interdependencies of government and pluralistic AKIS extension systems
| |
Function |
Rationale |
|
Government needs AKIS/RD for: |
Public policy implementation |
Implementation of public policies that enhance the public good often requires the education and mobilization of rural people in order to change their behaviour an objective for which AKIS/RD extension may be the best or only tool available to national governments. |
|
Information collection |
Information on agricultural conditions and rural populations can often be collected most easily and accurately by extension agents in the AKIS/RD who are already active in the field and knowledgeable about rural areas. |
|
|
Dealing with emerging concerns |
As diverse new issues emerge on the agricultural agenda, AKIS/RD is the main rural system that governments have to address new socio-economic, political and technical developments, such as the environmental impacts of non-source pollution, animal welfare, fair business and employment practices, HIV/AIDS, and other human health issues. |
|
|
Responding to emergencies |
Only higher levels of government, with the concerted help of local government, can respond effectively to many emergencies; AKIS/RD and their services are often the only widespread network of external government or non-governmental - presence in rural areas. |
|
|
AKIS/RD services need government for: |
Risk bearing and sharing |
Because government can bear the burden of risk more easily than individual agents can, government support may be essential in introducing new agricultural and rural development services, while promoting the institutional capacity of private providers to assume some, if not all, of these services. |
|
Information provision |
AKIS agencies are key users of information on producers, social conditions, production systems, markets and technologies for planning and implementing extension programmes; government endorsement enhances the credibility and reliability of information. |
|
|
Funding agent |
The State often serves as a funding agent for private sector provision of extension services. This is also one of the ways in which government can promote an enabling environment for the private sector. |
|
|
Regulation |
Even when funding and delivery of AKIS/RD services are left to the private sector, however, public sector oversight and regulation is important to protect the public. Aregulatory function provides a minimum set of rules and regulations to define the conditions under which research and extension activities can take place and to set standards for service delivery. |
|
|
Quality control and enhancement |
AKIS/RD services rely on key support services, especially for the education and training of research and extension staff and for technical support from other sources of innovation. Government can bring important economies of scope and scale to AKIS/RD support activities. |
|
|
System coordination |
The governments convening authority enables it to bring different service providers together to exchange information, develop new partnerships and collaborative mechanisms, and establish acceptable divisions of labour. Such government coordination can improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of pluralistic AKIS/RD services. |
|
|
Promoting reform |
Reform requires a policy vision and a national strategy for implementation, whether this involves decentralization, privatization, new contractual arrangements or user financing. Government must take the lead in defining new approaches and promoting changes in institutional capacity and interrelationships. |
Source: Adapted from Riviera and Alex, 2004.
Cross-cutting issues
Institutionally there are a number of cross-cutting issues, namely: the creation and role of AKIS/RD units within AKIS agencies to promote joint planning and to facilitate inter-agency linkages; the need for effective leadership, results-oriented management and professional training to foster AKIS/RD; a sound strategy for programme decentralization and subsidiarity; and the functional performance of AKIS agencies, their M&E systems and their impact assessment procedures.
To promote the demand for innovation, institutions must consider: which methods are most appropriate for enhancing demand-driven approaches in public sector programmes; the costs of investing in agricultural markets and market accessibility for agricultural producers; how best to support input and supply systems; what priorities to adopt first in developing rural physical infrastructure; how to coordinate and jointly plan with other AKIS agencies, the private sector, and agricultural producers and their organizations; the critical needs of staff and stakeholders for education and training; and the best ways and means to recognize women’s contribution, potential and involvement in the agriculture sphere.
Institutions have the major task of creating partnerships and networks. Questions that arise in this regard are: Which structures and mechanisms need to be created for effective institutional cooperation? How can public-private partnerships best be established? What are the best means for promoting the effective execution of participatory programme involvement by agricultural producers and relevant stakeholders? and How can the effective use of traditional and modern communication technologies be ensured? Most important, how can AKIS institutions promote "uptake pathways" for innovation, rather than simply transferring technology?
M&E and impact assessment
The main areas of collaboration among AKIS/RD operators tend to be in the planning, implementation and monitoring of project activities. In terms of planning, the agencies of the Ministry of Agriculture in Malaysia were found to collaborate well, especially at the director level. This was facilitated by monthly administrative meetings and weekly conferences with the Minister of Agriculture. At the field level, some formal and informal collaboration existed, but no formal mechanism for collaboration was found at the operational level.
As for project implementation, the Department of Agriculture and MARDI collaborated to produce food crops and ornamentals. This arrangement was agreed to at the State or headquarters levels of both agencies. MARDI also collaborated with the private sector in producing new feed materials and in improving the quality of palm olein oil. But there was little collaboration among the operators in M&E processes. In general, data from programme M&E, as well as impact assessment, should be shared across the AKIS/RD, particularly with agricultural producers and their organizations, so as to determine where problems exist and to involve all stakeholders in finding solutions.
Agricultural research
Agriculture (including crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry) is hugely important to the ten developing countries under analysis. Research institutes, universities, NGOs and private companies are all involved in research to find new ways of improving the production and value of agricultural products. While some research activities solve specific scientific problems, others give policy-makers the tools and methods they need to guide the evolution of agriculture in their countries. Research can also provide quantitative and qualitative assessment of the effectiveness of agrarian practices and institutional policies. Areas of study include farm management, food safety, and rural development.
Today’s research challenges include maintaining competitiveness, managing and using resources in a sustainable manner and meeting consumer demand and needs. Maintaining competitiveness has implications for employment levels and working conditions in the agriculture sector. Managing and using resources in a sustainable manner is critical for future development. Meeting consumer demands and needs means focusing on delivering high-quality products that meet market requirements but that are also safe for the consumer and sensitive to the environment. The success of research development work does not end in a publication. As the Malaysia study argues, research needs to be translated into technology that can be developed further for large-scale production or for the improvement of current agricultural products.
The new challenge for research is to provide support for a range of pluralistic AKIS/RD participants, including policy-makers, the private sector and other stakeholders. Research also needs to ensure a long-term perspective and not to respond only to client demands for quick results; this emphasis on quick results is often also a problem for donors. Institutional sustainability is an issue, because donor funding is usually for at most six to eight years, which is short-term for research. For small countries, the result of this has been a repeating cycle of diminishing capacity development and deterioration. Developing constituencies and sustainable funding for research is critical.
Moreover, technology and management innovations must be seen in a broader context. All innovation does not emanate from research institutes. In most countries, the majority of technology and innovation is often imported. Developing countries need to become better at seeking out and attracting technology from other institutions. This can be helped by the creation of an improved investment environment and stronger international linkages.
A coordinated approach to public sector research planning and priority setting is essential to maximize efficiency. Instead of a scattered research effort divided among different government ministries, Uganda has created a single body, the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) under the Ministry of Agriculture, which carries out agricultural research guided by national development policies and objectives. Several lessons were learned, including: the need to improve the flow of technologies to farmers; the need for institutional reforms within the concept of decentralization and farmer empowerment to make their demands felt; and the need for stronger partnerships with other AKIS domains and with the private sector.
In Cameroon, MINREST supervises the Institute of Research and Agricultural Development (IRAD)’s management and research activities, and provides a legal and operational framework for its cooperation with universities and institutions abroad. Priority setting and long-term planning are still not a pervasive process in Cameroon or in the individual institutions. However, recent reorganization following the country’s comprehensive strategic planning process holds new promise.
Research in many countries, such as Egypt, would benefit from improved technical capabilities, financial resources and linkage mechanisms. AKIS agencies need to cooperate closely with the private sector, in particular with NGOs, in order to gain greater access to scientific materials and to promote the institutional infrastructure. The Pakistan case study argues that Pakistan must develop a viable NARS based on the needs of farmers, agricultural scientists and all other stakeholders in the public, NGO and private sectors.
Agricultural extension
The changing nature of agricultural information and the new global ideology are significantly shaping developments in extension. Both the public sector’s agricultural extension education institutions and the private sector’s technology transfer activities are affected.
Agricultural information is changing in terms of its content, the means by which it is transferred and its marketability as a "commodity". Its content has been changing since the chemical industry’s entrance into the agricultural domain in the mid-nineteenth century, and more radically since the Green Revolution of the 1960s. The means of transfer have been advanced, chiefly in high-income countries, by the modernization of telecommunications and the popularization of computers, which provide immediate access to, for example, information on farm commodity prices worldwide and localized weather conditions. As Zijp (1994) notes, information technology is making both public and private sector agricultural information systems more accessible and more rapid in transmission. The commodification of agricultural information, i.e. the transformation of knowledge into a product for sale, has begun to revolutionize both public sector extension and the business of private sector technology transfer.
The nature and content of agricultural information have certainly changed, and will continue to change. In addition, the agricultural modernization process is likely to spread from developed and emerging economies to the less developed parts of the world. Current global trade negotiations are likely to increase the private sector’s socio-economic hegemony and accelerate the transition towards a global market economy. The commercialization and privatization of agricultural knowledge support systems, particularly public sector research and extension, will continue. International organizations and the pressures of the global market will move the world towards greater market interdependency.
As underlined in Section 1 of this study, the ten countries involved are at different economic and institutional stages of development. As regards extension, some are committed to public-private partnerships through contractual arrangements. In hierarchical countries, however, extension is not yet autonomous and has no authority to take administrative and financial decisions or to plan its programmes according to the availability of resources.
All need to evolve demand-driven decentralized approaches that envisage participation in programme planning, management and evaluation by all stakeholders - farmers, research scientists, educators, representatives of other nation-building departments, NGOs and the private/corporate sector and agriculture input/packaging and supplying companies.
As for human resource development, the progressive introduction and use of information and communications technology (ICT) appears to be recommended within the constraints of available trained human resources, infrastructure facilities and operational funds. ICTs can help to meet effectively the shortage of trained extension personnel and reach large numbers of target audiences, including the poor living in remote areas. In short, countries such as Pakistan appear to need greater linkages to agricultural information agencies, and these linkages should be strengthened by the use of mass media in both the public and private sectors, easy-to-read and - understand written and audiovisual material, such as leaflets, posters and brochures, and the preparation of video tapes and radio programmes.
All the studies emphasize that AKIS institutions should promote training at all levels, covering the pre-service, induction and in-service training of different categories of personnel. Training should be participant-oriented and participatory, with practical application - not just lectures and testing. It should employ the principles and techniques of adult education. Women should be recruited and trained as administrative staff and as extension staff to work with girls and women in rural areas in order to help them to increase their contribution to family incomes. Extension in many countries needs to employ more female workers in women-related programmes, as well as in extension administration. There is a need for more training courses for women to learn new technologies.
Extension should also establish strong linkages with agricultural universities, colleges and training institutions, federal agricultural and education ministries and provincial agriculture and education departments, as well as private and corporate sector representatives. In turn, agricultural universities and colleges should work closely with extension and other public agencies and private organizations to prepare relevant curricula and participate in joint sustainable plans that provide practical training facilities to final-year agriculture students. This should be along the lines of medical training, in which students spend the last year of their graduation programmes as hospital interns under the supervision of a practising doctor.
Motivation is always a factor, and attractive salary scales, prospects for career development and rapid promotion, and special allowances should be offered to extension personnel so as to attract qualified and committed staff. Such incentives should depend on increased results and impact from AKIS services. At present, the salaries, benefits and career development opportunities for extension staff are substantially lower than those of staff in other disciplines such as research, and this discourages bright university students from selecting agricultural extension as a major.
Uganda’s NAADS play a significant role in the implementation phase of AKIS/RD in that country. The fundamental aim of the programme is to develop a demand-driven, client-oriented and private agricultural service system. NAADS foresees the opening up of partnerships with the private sector and other partners in service delivery. Committed to pluralistic and participatory approaches, NAADS is planning to develop mechanisms for farmer empowerment, which should improve the relevance, content and effectiveness of service delivery.
Basic education and literacy: A key ingredient for farmers to benefit from the AKIS/RD system is literacy and numeracy. In Uganda, universal primary education and the Adult Literacy Programme are being pursued, with funding from the Poverty Action Fund. Various related programmes are being carried out by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), as well as by NGOs and community-based organizations (CBOs). NGOs are a considerable asset in advancing the goals of AKIS/RD.
Secondary education: In many developing countries, the agricultural education component of secondary education is poor. In many countries, such as Egypt, the curricula of agricultural secondary schools need to be updated in order to reflect new agricultural technologies, secondary school students would benefit from training on private farms, and secondary school teachers require training at diverse agricultural organizations and institutions.
Rural children and youth should have the same access to quality education as their urban counterparts. This will require maintaining schools in rural areas, organizing school networks and activities that comply with local needs, upgrading facilities, and introducing new teaching technologies. In many cases, literacy and numeracy are key dimensions in agricultural producers’ ability to benefit from AKIS/RD.
Technical/vocational education: In Pakistan, the planners and implementers of technical and vocational education found it useful to prepare a realistic national plan of action for the quantitative and qualitative expansion of a technical/vocational education programme for both men and women. The skill areas offered by technical/vocational education institutions should be jointly identified and prioritized, which can be accomplished by involving representatives of programme beneficiaries, industry and the main nation-building departments. Inter-agency joint programmes of technical/vocational education need to promote collaboration with departments of agriculture, industry, education and rural development. Linkages could contribute to institutional and human resource development by providing training at degree and certificate levels and by offering short-term courses in agrotechnologies for local farmers.
Universities: Agricultural universities recognize their teaching, research and extension roles, but are often unable to perform these well because they remain divorced from agricultural research and extension as a result of the separation of universities from agricultural ministries; have a multiplicity of administrative, financial and operational controls; have theory-oriented, centrally developed curricula; lack adequate M&E and impact assessment mechanisms; and lack adequate funding for library resources, textbooks, research and extension activities, and data handling facilities.
Malaysia argues that it is best to limit universities to producing degree-level professionals, because that is the core business of university teaching and research, while the specialized training required by specific agencies is best provided by the agencies themselves, through their own programmes of in-service training.
In order to learn from its experience of developing an effective agricultural education programme, the Pakistan case study suggests that countries should: decentralize the curricula development, teaching/learning experience, and education and training materials of each university and college institution, keeping in view the ecological and socio-economic situation of the area concerned; link universities/colleges and districts with each other for joint planning and implementation by establishing interdistrict and interprovincial networking for the sharing of institutional, human and research results, as well as instructional material and information for modernizing the use of available resources; and consider organizing more agricultural fairs, adaptive research farms, farmers’ days, exhibitions, and interdistrict and interprovincial visits from students, teachers, researchers and farmers for sharing experiences and information related to modern agricultural technologies on one hand, and development of participatory and problem solving decision-making skills on the other hand.
The Pakistan study also suggests that educational institutions need to: prepare a master plan for workforce development to meet the ever-increasing need for trained human resources covering all disciplines, by providing pre- and in-service training facilities to all; prepare a sound human resources policy with clearly defined recruitment and promotion procedures and attractive salary scales and incentives that encourage more qualified staff to enter agricultural education; make appropriate arrangements to provide additional training and institutional and material support for encouraging the use of ICT in teaching and the transfer of agricultural technology from researchers to end-users (farming communities) and from technology adopters to researchers; and seek the delegation of powers and authority for financial control in order to provide quality education.
At the heart of any discussion about contemporary agricultural information, its transfer and exchange is the fact that agricultural knowledge has to a large extent become commodified (Buttel, 1991). Worldwide, newly generated agricultural knowledge is becoming a priced commodity. In developing and less developed, as well as in industrialized, countries the provision of agricultural knowledge is increasingly fee-based. Always an economic good, agricultural information is increasingly seen as private property to be protected by law through patents and copyright, and to be provided to select clientele at a price.
As a result of the commodification of agricultural technology, the private sector has taken on an increasing role in information transfer, especially in the food and agriculture processing industry. This role is likely to increase as giant transnational enterprises gain greater control of the production and sale of commercial products for agribusiness, food and pharmaceuticals. However, it is important to avoid dogmatism for it is difficult to see what the food security needs of the world’s peoples will be in the coming decades of the twenty-first century. It is equally difficult to predict how the State and the private sector will develop, and whether there might be another "power shift" in the future.
Private companies and NGOs provide many and diverse services, as do RPOs and agricultural producers. The role of private sector entities in society and economics is increasingly recognized, although their integration into the socio-economic system is often overlooked (Rondot and Collion, 2001).
To enhance private sector coordination, rural development boards need to be developed, under the aegis of government, but with representative from various private sector bodies (companies, non-government institutions, RPOs, etc.). Private sector organizations can significantly affect the relative success or failure of AKIS/RD.
Private sector investment
For the private sector to invest in agricultural development it must be convinced about the new technology, and the government must meet it halfway by making appropriate investment available and providing the necessary incentives. Private sector involvement in the delivery of information services can improve the quality of the services provided.
With globalization and liberalized trade, agricultural institutional linkages promise increasingly to benefit government, as well as agricultural producers, input suppliers and other stakeholders. Markets and policy mandates provide an impetus with pertinent macroeconomic realities. Information is needed on markets and production. Farmers (including poor farmers) require competence in linking agricultural production to agroprocessing, marketing and the creation of farmers’ organizations. The domain of each agricultural discipline is only a small part of the total system. Ultimately, the concept and practice of extension need to be expanded to include a variety of rural development purposes and to prepare extension specialists who respond to on-farm and off-farm agricultural livelihood opportunities.
For AKIS to be successful, beneficiaries need to be actively engaged in the planning, implementation and monitoring of programmes in order to instil a sense of ownership and promote sustainability. The costs and potential benefits of participation are reasonably well known. As enumerated by the World Bank (1994), costs comprise the up-front financial, time and opportunity costs to the organization and stakeholders of identifying and engaging with each other. In addition, there are a number of potential difficulties, such as ensuring that stakeholder groups are representative and express the priorities of the people they are meant to represent; the risk of generating or aggravating conflicts between stakeholders with different priorities and interests; the risk of raising expectations that may prove impossible to fulfil; and the risk of the participation process being co-opted by powerful and more articulate elite groups to the exclusion of the poor and disadvantaged.
On the other side of the equation, benefits include a way of checking the relevance and appropriateness of the processes and products of development efforts; stakeholders’ increased commitment to and ownership of policies and projects, as well as their willingness to share costs and their interest in sustaining the benefits; greater efficiency and understanding, and better planning based on the concerns and ideas of a wide range of stakeholders; a better match between human capabilities and physical capital investments; greater transparency and accountability and improved institutional performance; enhanced information flows, which allow markets to function more efficiently; increased equity by involving the poor and disadvantaged in development efforts; and strengthened capacity of stakeholders as a consequence of their involvement in development efforts (World Bank, 1994).
One of the universal prescriptions for the effective management of public services, such as agricultural research and extension, is "partnership with farmers and implementing participatory approaches" (Rivera, Qamar and Crowder, 2001). Farmers’ involvement in managing extension services and determining extension programmes can serve to enhance the institutionalization of the empowering process. An effective means of empowering agricultural producers is to create an enabling environment for them to establish RPOs.
Gender issues
The Trinidad and Tobago case study suggests several ways of overcoming gender-based inequities in society: women’s groups make greater efforts to be aware and informed at all stages of the planning of regional programmes, projects and activities with gender applications (Gumbs, 1990); women become more involved in external marketing (Saul, 1990); and curricula in tertiary educational institutions be adjusted to reflect the needs of women employed in the agriculture sector (Fletcher-Paul, Roberts-Nkrumah and Johnson, 1990).
The Trinidad and Tobago study also draws attention to the relationship among the unpaid, invisible work of women in agriculture, the underestimation of the informal sector’s contribution to agricultural development, and inappropriate planning and development approaches (Paul, 1994). Paul also notes the importance of establishing mechanisms that emphasize the integration and coherence of policy formulation, planning and decision-making at the macro and micro levels, while at the same time incorporating gender analysis methodology as a vital and necessary component of the planning process. In short, AKIS/RD actors must be aware of the need for gender-sensitive research agendas and education and training curricula, as well as for the careful analysis of gender issues in extension programmes at the policy, planning and operational levels.
Rural producer organizations
Donors now recognize that the cornerstone for generating broad-based increases in agricultural productivity and farmer incomes in small-scale agriculture in developing countries lies in improving farmers’ access to essential resources. While small farmers make productive use of available land and labour, they typically have little or no control over many other essential agrosupport factors (e.g. technology, credit, fertilizers and market information).
Evidence also suggests (Byrnes, 2001) that farmers’ organizations can help small farmers in developing countries to improve their access to and use of essential agrosupport factors. Farmers’ organizations can greatly improve their members’ access to and management of essential production and market resources.
As farming and market conditions undergo rapid changes, a large part of the rural population finds itself in need of additional training or retraining. Farmers in many countries would profit from an increase in the number of training courses in new technologies, and young farmers and graduates would gain from training in problem analysis and utilizing the participatory approach. Coordination mechanisms are needed among the advisory councils serving farmers, and support is needed for the establishment of farmers’ organizations. NGOs can be instrumental in assisting in these tasks. Farmers have important roles to play, not only as producers, but also as contributors to the AKIS development processes.
Communication and communication technologies are crucial for the dissemination and gathering of information. Communication is a broad term that encompasses the process by which meanings are exchanged. Communication technologies have a long tradition in all forms of agricultural information generation, transfer and discovery. Traditionally, bulletins, newspapers, journals and (especially) radio have contributed to knowledge about new developments and best practices, as well as policy and institutional determinations that are relevant to agriculture and rural development. With today’s new technologies, among them the computer and access to the Internet, information on every possible subject abounds.
Developments in telecommunications and computers are revolutionizing agricultural research. New information technology has the potential to improve the quality of agricultural research, the efficiency of its management, and the relevance and timeliness of its results. Scientists and managers now have access to more information than ever before. At the same time, they can disseminate information to users more easily. Full-text retrieval and multimedia applications are already commonplace. The impact of such new technologies on many NARS is still slight, but growing.
There are two methods for acquiring professional information: interactive and non-interactive. Non-interactive sources include professional journals, books, and information obtained from the airwaves. These provide information but not interactive processes - i.e. the reader or listener cannot talk back to them. Interactive sources of professional information include friends, professionals, community radio, open-line TV programmes, computer chat rooms, and e-mail listserv systems.
Interactive and non-interactive communication tools contribute to the individual’s base of information and serve as part of his or her individual professional network. Interactive sources of information also serve as tools for contributing to the networks of others by distributing known or new knowledge acquired through professional networks. There is a need to encourage and support individual professional networks, as well as the more formal connections with established institutions.
Information systems and technologies
New information technologies pave the way in rural areas. They assist in establishing information systems, provide better access to market information, and help to computerize bookkeeping.
Lithuania recommends that new information technologies be advanced into rural areas. At the time of the study (2002), most rural inhabitants did not have access to or know how to use modern information technologies. In fact, only 1 percent of urban inhabitants in Lithuania make use of Internet services. Although most rural schools are equipped with computers, these are only utilized in the educational process and are only just beginning to be used to serve other social demands, such as adult and continuing education. However, it is expected that e-publishing will be started in the near future, and e-sites containing special information will be created. A special Internet Web site, "The Master Fair", has already been developed and is expected to bring in sales of agricultural and food products. At the time of the Lithuanian study, some 121 Lithuanian companies had registered on this Web site.
