ICTs: transforming agricultural extension?

This summary report provides an outline of the main issues and trends in agricultural extension, as they relate to ICTs, with a special emphasis on improving rural livelihoods. The report draws on the presentations, case studies and discussions from the CTA Observatory. It highlights the potential for, and constraints to, using ICTs for agricultural communication and information exchange and identifies implications of these issues for CTA. Some of the issues addressed by the report are:

• how has the political environment for agricultural extension changed over the past few years?
• what new extension approaches are emerging?
• which new groups of actors are emerging in the agricultural knowledge and information system?
• what are the main constraints to using ICTs to improve rural livelihoods and agricultural communication and information exchange?
• what are the main policy issues related to the use of ICTs for agricultural extension?
• what ICTs are being used in agricultural extension, and how have they been used in specific agricultural sectors to improve rural livelihoods?

The report concludes that ICTs can be harnessed to have a direct impact on enhancing both rural livelihoods and the agricultural sector in which the rural poor are immersed. However, ICT project investments driven by the ‘technology of the day’, or by approaches that neglect to analyse how ICTs can truly enhance rural livelihoods, should be avoided. Five key recommendations were derived from the CTA Observatory:

• engage in regional ICT policy awareness-raising workshops for managers and senior professional staff involved in extension services in ACP countries
• produce simple fact sheets on the successful use of ICTs in agricultural extension
• package multi-stakeholder planning approaches
• develop ICT problem trees for better bottleneck analysis
• facilitate studies on the current status of the regulatory environment in ACP countries.