Question 1: What are we sharing and what needs to be shared?

The opportunity to access data from various resources opens new doors for meta-analysis studies. In a study aiming to model for soil-borne disease, we faced lack of data trying to verify our multi-layer prediction. We were able to track published data from two studies done in different locations on the globe and the contribution was valuable. I can only imagine the possibilities to compare and test models on ample data.

Here at Embrapa we have been concerned about this issue to generate new knowledge from information already produced and available, and we face the difficulties of communication between specialists. We have both physical and conceptual communication difficulties.

Web environments for collaborative work using Web 2.0  ICTs has been our choice to resolve the difficulties of physical communication between individuals and research networks.

Concerning the conceptual communication difficulties, we have chosen to develop terminological treatment works, using conceptual maps and ontologies to establish relationships between information and thus make its recovery process more complete.

We develop this approach in the context of a project that aims to improve understanding of the processes of agricultural intensification that occurs in Brazil, mainly related to soybean and sugar cane. Another concern of this project is to translate into other languages the erminology produced in Portuguese. Arising from the translation of terms, we've worried about inserting terms not yet present in multilingual thesauri, e.g. AGROVOC.

This terminological approach has proved very interesting, because we have observed that various terms encountered in the specific context of agricultural intensification are also common touch other knowledge domains such as global climate change, socio-economics, environment, land use and land occupation, etc..

Le invito a visitor nuestro sitio: http://www.voxterra.org/sistema.php

Saludos cordiales

It is true, that interdisciplinarity might be challenging on the one hand, but mostly very fruitful on the other hand.

From the perspective of integrated rural devevelopment, which follows an horizontal approach, it is no novelty and evaluation results show resulting synergies if applied at regional level.

Nevertheless it has proved difficult to bring the different stakeholder together and make them successfully communicating, both, at local and national/ international level. Examples for the latter are for instance EU driven National Rural Networks across Europe. 

I see that previous contributions have raised many issues of which many go beyond information sharing, but need to be reflected into future trends that help improve information documentation and information sharing. Some issues like another continent … another dream, lack of knowledge on computers and web 2.0, "my interest first", cultural heritage, lack of knowledge packed products that are in the interest of farmers, lack of incentives among researchers, especially in many of the developing countries, lack of clear culture sharing, how to document and make visible outputs, and other many issues that could remain as obstacles affecting information sharing.

I go back again to the persistent gap between the efforts of producing knowledge that are in the minds of researchers or in technical reports or even in scientific articles and the efforts of integrating this knowledge into simple and visible outputs that are of the interest of farmers, especially poor farmers. Many researchers in many countries think that their end product is in publishing their research results in scientific journal where they gain scientific recognition and job promotion.

It would be wise if we think of ways of motivating researchers to pay efforts in making visible outputs and success stories in formats that are in the interest of farmers rather than the sole interest of the scientific community. I can give a story from my experience, as I tried to pull out my work experience during the past 20 years into two success stories, one of these stories was published as a study, not as a scientific article although it was reviewed. The another story was published by GFAR in a competitive work. Also I tried to prepare many small booklets and leaflets that are useful for farmers as they are supported by results from marketing surveys and marketing information system. The issue is when I introduced all my work for scientific promotion, all were rejected as they are not published in scientific journals including the one published by GFAR/AARINENA.

Now, the issue is how we can think of suggestions that could help facilitate better recognition of research efforts and contribute to breaking the vicious circle in the integration of scientific and indigenous knowledge as well as the mechanisms that facilitate more participatory and farmer-centered approaches leading to suitable formats of publishing and sharing information.

Just to remind everybody that the forum thread on question 2 is open!

I am a software engineer working as an Intern/Consultant at CIMMYT, www.cimmyt.org.

I mainly work on a project called Wheat Atlas, wheatatlas.cimmyt.org

The majority of my work at the moment involves collecting data on biotic and abiotic stresses for wheat and i have been communicating with over 1200 stations that we at CIMMYT have an established relationship with to collect data, through means of a survey, to populate the Wheat Atlas. Most stations have replied and we have gathered, over the past 6 months a working level of data on wheat diseases mostly from developing countries, data for which is live.

In addition to this searchable database, we have also started looking at future possibilities of integrating social networking into the Wheat Atlas, but at the moment this is on the back-burner due to concerns that much of the scientific community in Wheat is not fully engaged yet with using social media. However, CIMMYT does utilise and have a presence on facebook and twitter.

We also, are in the process of implementing a fully searchable directory of individuals and institutions working in wheat.

Wheat Atlas also holds data to do with country Wheat Statistics and data as well as information on Megaenvironments and wheat types/varieties. More data on Wheat Diseases & Pests are found on another CIMMYT website, Wheat Doctor, wheatdoctor.cimmyt.org

I hope this is of interest to this discussion and look forward to discussing this further on this discussion board.

Please indulge me while I provide a brief discription of the economic and administrative environment found in most developing countries and how that could impact on data that can realistically be collected and how information flows.

Financiall Suppressed Economy

I usually define the economy of developing countries as financially suppressed. I confess that is my own term and the economists may have more academic term to describe the situation. What I mean by this is that while consumer prices, particularly of goods produced in country, maybe 1/3 to 1/5th what they are in the US or EU, wages are perhaps 1/12th what they are in the US or EU. The result is that while we may spend 15% of our income for food, out colleague may be spending 65% and smallholder beneficiaries may be spending in excess of 80% of their wages or produce. The result is that, since you cannot tax what people have to spend to survive, the tax base for which to provide civil services including support for agriculture programs of most governments becomes virtually non existant.  

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/FinancialSuppressed.htm

Financially Stalled Government

The major impact of this on agriculture services is that the are no operating funds to undertake programs. Virtually all government revenue must go to meet the contract obligations of the civil officers, after that very little is available for fuel for transportation, laboratory supplies, and field supplies, etc. Thus unless supported by some NGO project officers have little choice but to sit around their offices hoping to get some support, or under take consulting opportunities for some of the larger farmers who can afford to pay for the services. This is not a conflict of interest as it would be in the US, but perhaps the best opportunity for officers to come in contact with growers.

The result is that most of the research is deferred to collaboration with NGO with the most noticable the variety development work in colloaboration with the CGIAR centers. Also, most of the extension is in collaboration with NGO as part of development projects, and extension personnel migrating from project to project where supplemental income is available. The host officers ultimately ending up with supporting roles. Data collection is also limited to what can be easily observed with limited potential for any supporting laboratory analysis.

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/FinanciallyStalled.htm

It also means that many of the services available on paper may not be up to international standards. Perhaps the prime example would be certified seed and regardless of how well trained or motivated the certification team may be if they don't have the funding to make 3 field visits a season nor the supplies for running germination test, then the program has to operate mostly on the honor system.

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/VarietyImprovement.htm

Under these conditions libraries are mostly irrelivant with books left over from expatriates project and well out of date, journals subsctiptions are impossible to maintain. Thus what is left is the freely circulated material like that coming from FFTC in Tawain and used to come through DIFD until funding ended.

Fortunately there is the internet but the most reliable and sustainable would be from the cafe near the offices as these computers tend to be maintained and serviceable while those associated with host government offices tend to break down after which there are no means of repair.

Kind of a dismal picture, but I think fairly realistic.

Thank you,

Dick Tinsley

Dear All,

I work in NARO Uganda. I have been away facilitating an International Course in Participatory Planning Monitoring and Evaluation in the Netherlands. I returned this week. I am glad to be part of this discussion and to appreciate the level of discussion already going on. The topics discusses are very partnent to agricultural research and development especially in Africa. I will add my voice tomorrow to this main topic and I will contribute to all later