Information and knowledge management for African agriculture

Information and knowledge management was one of the topics discussed at the recent Fifth All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture in Addis Ababa.

Six papers were presented:

1. A content evaluation of the Proceedings of the 4th All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture: An unsupervised Leximancer™ Analysis - presentation
2. Innovation platforms: A new approach to market development and technology uptake in Southern Africa - presentation / video interview / blog post
   
3. Support to capacity building to promote formal marketing and trade of livestock and livestock products from the Horn of Africa - presentation / video interview
   
4. Farmers as artificial inseminators: Experiences from Arsi Zone, Ethiopia - presentation
   
5. Ethiopian livestock market information system: Experience from a pilot phase - presentation
   
6. Planning for and monitoring outcomes in action-research projects: The Napier Grass diseases project - presentation / video interview
   

Key conclusions shared in plenary were:

• Text mining tools can give useful insights from dense content
• Innovation platforms “make people talk [and listen] to one another”; they increase returns on investment, promote information flows, help with farmer-market alignment, link real technologies with the needs of markets, and put money in the hands of producers
• Market information systems, specialized exchange networks, development of entrepreneurial skills, and training on standards and quality control are ways to help livestock producers and exporters better understand and exploit markets
• Farmers can be trained to deliver and manage [artificial insemination] and other advisory services for other farmers
• Outcome mapping helps us target information-communication activities to persuade and support behavior change of ‘boundary’ partners – farmers, researchers, media, extension, policy …

More on the congress