ICTS – Transforming Agricultural Extension?
• Farmers empowered through farmers’ organisations and CBOs seeking services from both private- and public-sector providers and, over time, developing the ability to pay for such services. Lightfoot (2003) challenged Observatory participants to develop operational procedures and guidelines, harnessing ICTs where appropriate, to: • Facilitate multi-stakeholder collaboration and bring together partners – farmers, NGOs, private and public service providers, and local government – for demanddriven extension • Nurture different approaches so that stakeholders organise demand-driven extension services in their own way • Prioritise farmers’ demands and target groups to maximise impact on poverty reduction • Build local capacity – for farmers to articulate and communicate their demands; for extension service providers to respond to those demands; and for stakeholders to form multi-stakeholder collaborative partnerships • Reach the poor – who are rarely well organised, who have little or no voice, and who need services such as health, education and credit that can be coordinated with the assistance of extension managers. Greenridge, O’Farrell, Lightfoot and other Observatory participants helped to frame the key ‘what for?’ question resulting from the Observatory: How can ICTs be harnessed within agricultural extension to contribute effectively and efficiently to improving rural livelihoods and reducing rural poverty?
Using the sustainable rural livelihoods approach to better understand ‘What for?’ and ‘How?’ The concept of sustainable rural livelihoods is central to the discussion of ICTs and extension. The concept was first promoted by Chambers and Conway (1992) in Sustainable Rural Livelihoods, and has since formed the basis for many of the programmes of the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and is used by many overseas development agencies to orient their policies and programmes. The approach has been embraced by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s ICT programmes, because the link between ICTs and rural livelihoods ‘facilitates the acquisition and exchange of information by the poor necessary to develop relevant livelihood strategies; improves communication within and between the institutions responsible for making decisions that affect livelihood options; and empowers poor communities to participate in decision-making processes’ (Batchelor and O’Farrell, 2003).
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