设施农业－我国农业资源高效利用的重要途径

通过对设施家业在我国农业发展中的重要性及其发展概况的分析,提出“设施农业是我国农业资源高效利用的重要途径”。主张将有限的资金优先用于遗传工程、良种扩繁、节能节水等方面的农业设施;应结合不同地区的具体情况,充分发挥农业地域资源优势,将环境调控于必不可少的最*设施农业、农业资源、环境调控、     

珠江三角洲基塘系统演化及生态修复策略——以佛山4村为例

珠江三角洲基塘系统是中国重要农业文化遗产,其宏观格局变化已广受关注,但微观村落层面的研究还未得到足够重视.本文构建了珠江三角洲基塘系统演化概念性分析框架,以佛山市西桥社区、南金村、青田村、仕版村为例,采用实地调研与半结构式访谈,分析基塘系统的演化过程、特征与机制.研究结果表明:①基塘系统已由原有种养结合转为单一高密度养...     

湖南农业大学公共体育课课堂教学评价指标体系的研究

提高教学质量已经成为高校扩招以来迫在眉睫的任务。通过对湖南农业大学公共体育课课堂教学质量的评价体系进行研究,旨在探讨农业院校公共体育课教学质量的评价监督体系。     

构建我国第三代农机的创新体系

农业机械化和农业装备智能化是提高农业生产效率、转变农业发展方式、提高农村生产力的重要基础。70年来我国的农机工业从新中国成立时候的"一穷二白"发展到如今全球规模第一,取得了举世瞩目的成就。但是,我国的农机工业与世界农机强国相比依然存在着巨大的技术差距,"大而不强"成为现阶段的主要特征。如何实现农机工业"由大变强"的突破,根本路径是要建立适合中国农业生产作业方式的农机创新体系。文章以拖拉机作为农机行业的典型代表,回顾了我国农机工业体系的发展历程,并结合技术发展和土地制度的变革,对新中国的农机工业体系进行断代划分;着重阐述了未来第三代农机的创新体系建设目标和内容;探讨新的技术创新体系在黄河三角洲的应用与实践,介绍如何构建第三代农机的应用体系。最后,对全面构建自主可控的第三代农机创新体系提出规划建议。     

Formal system and farmers' system: the impact of CIMMYT maize germplasm in South-Western China

Public agricultural extension services around the world are being pressured to adapt to new funding constraints and a changing agricultural sector. The global perspective on extension is no longer that of a unified public sector service, but of a multi-institutional network of knowledge and information support for rural people. This reality and its ensuing issues were discussed at an international workshop on ‘Extension and Rural Development’, sponsored by the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development, in collaboration with the Neuchâtel Group, and held in November 2002 in the IFPRI headquarters in Washington, DC. One output of the workshop was the compilation of 44 edited case studies organized into sections as follows: (1) decentralization systems, (2) privatization of extension systems, (3) demand-driven approaches to agricultural extension, (4) revitalization within public sector services, and (5) national strategy and reform process. The case studies portray extension within the context of a wide rural development agenda; their composite view of extension recognizes the need for a sophisticated and differentiated set of services. From the policy standpoint it implies that governments need to act to redefine extension and implement coherent extension policies to advance pluralistic systems of extension providers. The authors believe that policymakers and extension practitioners and those in related disciplines will find the result of the World Bank/USAID/Neuchatel workshop relevant to the design of future reforms.     

Necessary,But Not Sufficient: Critiquing the Role of Information and Communication Technology in Putting Knowledge into Use

Abstract

Purpose: This article reviews the experience of ICT applications as a tool for putting research derived knowledge into use for innovation in South Asia.

Design/methodology/approach: The article uses the contemporary understanding of communication and innovation in reviewing the experience of ICTs in putting new knowledge into use in South Asia.

Findings: The findings from this study suggest that ICTs in general have not contributed effectively to the challenge of putting new knowledge into use as they are mostly used to support traditional communication tasks — such as information dissemination and training. The article argues that this under-utilisation of the potential of ICTs could be due to: a lack of appreciation of the new communication-intermediation tasks required for innovation, underestimation of the roles of intermediaries and their capacities for innovation and lack of networks needed for communities to make use of the information provided through ICTs.

Practical implications: Although the understanding of communication, innovation and extension has changed substantially in the past two decades, there is still a big gap between theory and practice. This article contends that this gap needs to be bridged if ICTs are to effectively contribute to putting new knowledge into use.

Originality/value: The article manifests the necessity for ICT based initiatives to be embedded into the renewed understanding of communication and innovation and it moves ICT related debates from merely a success story to a pragmatic world of communication and innovation process.     

Books Received

Abstract

This paper analyses the organizational, financial and technological incentives that service organizations used to motivate farmers to finance agricultural research and extension in Benin. Understanding the foundations and implications of these motivation systems is important for improving farmer financial participation in agricultural research and extension.

We studied three cases of farmer financial participation in the field of agricultural research and extension in Benin. We conducted semi-structured interviews with leaders of service organizations and farmers’ associations, local authorities and individual farmers. Our interviews focused on service delivery systems, mechanisms of farmers’ financial contribution, the functioning of farmers’ associations, and the appropriateness of services provided. We performed thematic and comparative analyses at the interfaces between (1) service providers and partner–farmer associations, (2) service providers and delivered services, and (3) farmers/farmers’ associations and services.

Incentives for farmer financial participation are the increasing participation strategy, the fulfillment of farmers’ needs and the local leadership valorization. The selection and combination of their variants determine the motivating capacity and orientation of service organizations. Conversely to the increasing participation strategy, an effective fulfillment of farmers’ needs and local leadership valorization can lead to sustainable motivation. As the fulfillment of farmers’ needs determines importantly the effectiveness and sustainability of farmers’ motivation, the strategies of farmer financial participation are likely to fail if there are no successful agricultural technological incentives.

In the current context of privatization of agricultural services in developing countries, this analytical framework is of interest for policy makers and development workers for identifying conditions of farmer financial participation and designing effective motivation strategies.     

Gender-Sensitive Approaches to Extension Programme Design

Abstract

Purpose:

Though women are engaged in farming and play a major role in almost every agricultural operation, they continue to receive very limited extension support. While several interventions have been made to address this ‘gender’ bias in extension delivery, there continues to be a shortfall between the kind of support that is provided and the needs and demands of rural women. This gap between supply and demand needs to be addressed in order to improve the lives and livelihoods of women in the rural farming sector.     

From Best Practice to Best Fit: A Framework for Designing and Analyzing Pluralistic Agricultural Advisory Services Worldwide

Abstract

We assess the long-term effectiveness of outreach and education efforts associated with a water quality improvement project in a watershed located in northern Utah, USA. Conducted 15 years after the original project began, our research examines the lasting impacts of different extension activities on landowners’ motivations to participate and their awareness and understanding of the water quality problem. Data were gathered by reviewing annual project reports, interviewing project staff about outreach and education efforts, and conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a majority of the farmers and ranchers who participated in the project. The findings suggest that landowners were motivated to participate in the programme more by practical farm and household considerations and available cost-share opportunities than by particular environmental concerns. Previous relationships between farmers and government programme staff and one-on-one visits with landowners played an important role in their decisions to participate, while demonstration projects and peer-to-peer social diffusion processes played a much smaller role than expected. Although participants had a good grasp of the project goals, they did not have a strong sense of ownership of the water quality problem. These results suggest that education and outreach approaches centred only on the environmental dimensions of conservation projects may be insufficient to motivate changes in conservation behaviour. The results also suggest that conventional outreach strategies often did not have their presumed impact on landowners.     

Videos Bridging Asia and Africa: Overcoming Cultural and Institutional Barriers in Technology-Mediated Rural Learning

Abstract

Will African farmers watch and learn from videos featuring farmers in Bangladesh? Learning videos on rice seed management were made with rural women in Bangladesh. By using a new approach, called zooming-in, zooming-out, the videos were of regional relevance and locally appropriate. When the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) introduced them to Africa in 2005, many scientists and civil servants thought that the videos would be culturally inappropriate and hence irrelevant to African smallholder farmers. However, African farmers who watched the videos did not experience cultural barriers. In fact, they enjoyed seeing another part of the world where farmers faced similar problems as theirs, and were able to solve these problems by themselves. To promote wider uptake of the videos a key challenge was to overcome the institutional barriers. Public sector agencies especially had to be convinced that African smallholders appreciated Asian videos. By watching the videos with farmers and listening to their feedback, the skeptical scientists and service providers changed their minds. By 2009, the Bangladeshi rice seed videos had been translated into 20 African languages and so became national products. Videos made according to the zooming-in zooming-out approach can bring farmer-to-farmer extension to a higher level of social aggregation.