Caribbean librarians for agriculture

Interested in AgInfo and Libraries in the Caribbean? Check ut the Caribbean Librarians for Agriculture blog. dited by Shamin Renwick and Kathryn Duncan, it highlights online information sources and resources which support sustainable Agricultural Development (including Fisheries, Forestry, Rural Development and Environmental issues) in the Caribbean.

Tamil Nadu Agricultural University launches community radio and agritech portal

In October 2009, TNAU launched a new portal and community radio. The community 'e-radio' is integrated into the University's e–Extension network and aims to "compile, record, edit and fine tune the content of the technologies for the benefit of farmers, farm women, youth and other stakeholders in the broad domain of agriculture and rural development."

The AgriTech portal also links to the University's 'Agricultural Technology Information Centre' that "provides a ‘single window’ delivery system for agricultural information;" the Kisan network of agricultural call centers that deliver extensio services and "respond to issues raised by farmers, instantly, in the local language." It also lists a range of other ICT and agriculture initiatives in India

Scaling opportunity: Information and Communications Technology for social inclusion

As individuals and geographies are increasingly connected to the global economy via Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), an unprecedented opportunity to inclusively serve the poor is emerging. Robust market competition, affordable pricing, liberalized regulation and bottom up innovation are coalescing to rapidly close the “connectivity gap”.

This discussion guide from the World Econmic Forum highlights some of the key factors shaping the evolution of ICT within the context of rural and remote regions of emerging economies.

Colombia: Internet vía fluvial

Un editorial señala que algunas alejadas poblaciones rurales de la Amazonía colombiana tendrán acceso a Intenet gracias a la ley (la 1.341 del 2009) que promueve su uso y acceso, en igualdad de condiciones, como interpretación del principio constitucional de que "los estratos menos favorecidos y la población rural tengan acceso y uso a las plataformas de comunicación, en especial de Internet y contenidos informáticos y de educación integral".

Por lo pronto, comienza a llegar por vía fluvial embarcación que lleva 20 computadores, con acceso a Internet y que recorrerá unos 1.800 kilómetros, hasta llegar dentro de 45 días a Leticia. Unas 15 poblaciones tendrán la posibilidad de conocer, no con escaso asombro, lo básico de los computadores, manejar ratón y teclado y aprender de los servicios que ofrece el Estado a través de la red.

El esfuerzo del Ministerio de las Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones llevará computadores para equipar las escuelas rurales-, es un acertado y magnífico principio para que las comunidades distantes tengan conocimientos más cercanos de qué es y cómo funciona el mundo tecnológico.

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Ademas:

• Colombian Ministry of Communications Extends Service Agreements With Gilat

• Putumayo con Internet satelital

Web publishing for research impact at CIAT

This 2007 poster reports on ways that CIAT in Colombia shares research tools and results. Check out other postings on research communication at CIAT.

Information search strategies of Ohio farmers

In the December 2009 issue of JOE - the Journal of Extension, Florian Diekmann examines farmers' informational needs and identified factors that influence farmers' information choices.

"The results highlight the differences in farmers' search strategies regarding type, amount, and sources of information. Findings show farmers practiced high-, moderate-, and low-search strategies to stay current on topics important to their farm business. The implications for Extension professionals are discussed."

Panamá: Red del Campo promueve la creación de la primera biblioteca digital especializada en temas agropecuarios

Mejorar la gestión y el acceso público de la información sobre temas agropecuarios, mediante la creación de la primera biblioteca digital especializada en temas agrícolas y ganaderos, fue el punto focal de una presentación organizada por la Red del Campo.

Esta presentación, realizada por el especialista en gestión de la información y consultor de FAO, Felipe Vera, expuso en su primera parte una evaluación de los servicios que ha estado ofreciendo el portal Red del Campo, recabados a través de la aplicación de una encuesta en línea y entrevistas a otros actores estratégicos del sector, explicó el coordinador técnico de la Red del Campo, Bienvenido Castillo.

Castillo destacó que desde que fuera lanzado a finales de mayo de este año el sitio web Red del Campo, han ingresado más de 49 mil internautas provenientes de todas las regiones del país e incluso hasta del exterior.

Tras la aplicación del estudio se recomienda aprovechar las valiosas bases de datos y documentos ya existentes en las distintas entidades del sector, como el MIDA el IDIAP el IMA y VICOMEX, entre otras, mediante la aplicación de estándares que faciliten y simplifiquen la búsqueda de información.

Information and ICT management presentations from MANAGE

Dr. A. S. Charyulu of the library at India's National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management has shared some of his presentations on slideshare. They include:

• How to collect information for writing a success story in agriculture
  
• ICT-enabled services for agricultural development in India
  
• Public-Private Partnership in Market-led Extension:Case Studies
  

Gobierno chileno facilitará el acceso de los agricultores a internet

Con el fin de que productores y agrupaciones campesinas puedan aumentar la competitividad de sus negocios con el uso de las tecnologías, el Ministerio de Agricultura, a través del Instituto de Desarrollo Agropecuario (Indap) y la Fundación para la Innovación Agraria (FIA), estableció un convenio de colaboración con la Asociación de Telecentros Activos de Chile (Atach).

Mediante este acuerdo, el Ministerio de Agricultura implementará un total de 10 telecentros rurales, los cuales rescatarán la experiencia piloto apoyada por FIA y ejecutada por la ONG CDI Chile entre 2006 y 2009 en dos localidades del país.

Su objetivo fue implementar dos Escuelas de Informática y Ciudadanía (EIC) o telecentros para permitir la inclusión digital de los agricultores.

La Ministra de Agricultura, Marigen Hornkohl, señaló que “la incorporación de las TICs en los sistemas productivos es un factor determinante en el desarrollo del sector agropecuario y en la consolidación de la tarea de convertir a Chile en Potencia Alimentaria y Forestal”.

La idea es partir con alfabetización digital básica para después seguir con la aplicación de herramientas informáticas a los temas productivos de los agricultores.

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Reaching the unreached: Community based village knowledge centres in India

Suchit Nanda and Subbiah Arunachalam from the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation have just released a book entitled Reaching the unreached: Community based village knowledge centres and village resource centres.

Since 1992, the Foundation has pioneered ICT-enabled development activities through Village Resource Centres (VRCs) and Village Knowledge Centres (VKCs). They use both traditional and modern technologies to provide necessary information/knowledge to the rural communities. The book tells the stories of the people who work with and eenfit from these centres. It also sets out steps needed to establish a successful rural telecenter of this type:

Step 0: Self-assessment
Step 1: Social Mobilization and Need / Demand Assessment
Step 2: Community Participation
Step 3: Connectivity
Step 4: Content
Step 5: Hub and Spokes Model
Step 6: Management, Monitoring and Evaluation
Step 7: Services
Step 8: Partnership
Step 9: Capacity Building
Step 10: Sustainability

Transformative impact of ICT: Change stories from rural India

Arundhathi, Suchit Nanda and Subbiah Arunachalam from the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation have just released a book entitled Transformative Impact of ICT: Change stories from rural India. Through a series of illustrated chapters, it presents twelve stories that show how ICTs have changed and transformed the lives of rural people in India.

Knowledge creation and flow in Japanese agriculture

A recent article in the journal 'Library Management' examines how Japanese agricultural agencies are have integrated knowledge creation and sharing initiatives within their organizations.

Taxonomic information exchange and copyright: The Plazi approach

A large part of our knowledge on the world's species is recorded in the corpus of biodiversity literature with well over hundred million pages, and is represented in natural history collections estimated at 2 – 3 billion specimens. But this body of knowledge is almost entirely in paper-print form and is not directly accessible through the Internet. For the digitization of this literature, new territories have to be chartered in the fields of technical, legal and social issues that presently impede its advance. The taxonomic literature seems especially destined for such a transformation.

This article 'BMC Research Notes' "describes the services and software of Plazi, which provide a fully functional infrastructure that allows adding new publications to be processed by running a semi-automatic mark-up process and storing the enhanced documents into a dedicated server that supports harvesting of its contents."

Note: Plazi is an association supporting and promoting the development of persistent and openly accessible digital taxonomic literature.

IAMSLIC repository makes papers on aquatic and marine science information accessible

Conference papers and proceedings (1984 - ) from IAMSLIC are available in the Dspace repository hosted by the Woods Hole Scientific Community.

Agricultural libraries in Bangladesh

The journal 'Information Science Today' features three articles about agricultural libraries in Bangladesh:

• Networking of Agricultural Information Systems in Bangladesh (BD-AGRINET): A Model
  
• The role of Libraries for the development of human resources in the field of Agriculture in Bangladesh
  
• Library automation: A study of the AIC, BANSDOC and the National libraries of Bangladesh
  

Acceso Abierto a Información Agraria en Centro América

Hablando en la Reunión RIBDA 2009 en Lima, Hugo Gallo, Jefe de Biblioteca de la Escuela Agrícola Panamericana en Honduras, reflexiona sobre las experiencias en Acceso Abierto a la Información Agraria en Centro América y Honduras.

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Acceso Abierto - RSS

Jamaica launches agriculture market information system

Jamaica Agriculture Market Information System (JAMIS), was developed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MOAF) with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), CDC Development Solutions and App Venture, to collect and disseminate pricing data of agricultural commodities traded in the local and regional market place, on a weekly basis.

The primary function of the JAMIS is to compile and disseminate information that will aid producers, purchasers, consumers, and distributors in the sale and purchase of agricultural commodities nationally and internationally.

JAMIS web site

Acceso Abierto y Repositorios Abiertos en el CIP y el CGIAR

Hablando en la Reunión RIBDA 2009 en Lima, Cecilia Ferreyra del CIP - el Centro Internacional de la Papa – explica la importancia de los repositorios instituciones y el acceso abierto en su instituto.

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Acceso Abierto - RSS

Countdown to IAALD Montpellier

On 25 April, the 13th IAALD World Congress kicks off in Montpellier ...

These past weeks, members of the organizing committee have been very busy reviewing almost 200 poster and presentation proposals for the congress. We can look forward to a very exciting set of papers - and speakers - joining us in Montpellier.

You can see the pre-schedule online: http://iaald2010.agropolis.fr/program/schedule :

Aside from the plenary sessions (http://iaald2010.agropolis.fr/program/program), things to look out for include:

- a workshop on biodiversity information exchange organized by our partners EBHL and Bioversity International - 2010 is international year of biodiversity!

- a session by FAO on vocabularies to share information across communities

- a CIARD workshop on concrete ways to make your information accessible (Monday)

- a workshop by CTA on 'm-agriculture'- mobile phones and devices

- a FAO/CTA e-agriculture.org session on monitoring and evaluating rural ICT interventions

- a session by the University of Washington Technology & Social Change group on delivering rural public access to ICTs

- a session by IAALD on innovations in agricultural libraries

- discussions on open access, knowledge sharing, and social media in agriculture

- networking with colleagues from around the world in a fantastic location - Montpellier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montpellier) - heart of French agricultural education and research in a region full of history, culture, wine and agricultural products.

- visits to the historic Botanic Garden, Faculty of Medicine, and Agropolis Museum in Montpellier

Please help us plan and prepare - and save yourself some money - register online at: http://iaald2010.agropolis.fr/venue/registration

There are still a few stands left - send an email to Christine Silvy for information (silvy@supagro.inra.fr)

We hope to see many people working with agricultural information, communication, knowledge sharing, and ICTs in Montpellier!

Tacit knowledge and innovation capacity: Evidence from the Indian livestock sector

To cope and compete in this rapidly-changing world, organisations need to access and apply new knowledge. While explicit knowledge is important, what is often critical is an organisation’s ability to create, access, share and apply the tacit or un-codified knowledge that exists among its members, its network and the wider innovation system of which it is a part.

This UNU-MERIT discussion paper explores the role of tacit knowledge in livestock sector innovation capacity though the case of Visakha Dairy, one of the most progressive producer-owned milk marketing companies in India. Analysis of two episodes in Visakha’s evolution clearly illustrates how it used tacit knowledge to innovate around challenges.

The paper concludes that while tacit knowledge is clearly a major resource that organisations rely on to cope with change, it does not follow that knowledge management approaches that rely on codifying this knowledge are the way forward.
Instead, what it does suggest is that better management of the learning processes, through which tacit knowledge is generated, would be a more useful contribution to innovation and innovation capacity — in other words, a shift from knowledge management to learning management.

Download the report

More on innovation in rural development

Acceso Abierto y RedagroChile

Exponiendo en la Reunión RIBDA 2009 en Lima, Claudia Chau de la Fundación para la Innovación Agraria (FIA) explica el valor del acceso abierto a los miembros de RedagroChile.

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Claudia brinda una introducción sobre las actividades de RedagroChile - un Sistema Nacional de Información Bibliográfica que busca dar servicios a los usuarios y usuarias del sector agrario, para facilitar y mejorar el acceso a la información agrícola disponible en el país.

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Acceso Abierto - RSS

Abriendo el Acceso al conocimiento del CGIAR

Exponiendo en la Reunión RIBDA 2009 en Lima, Edith Hesse del CIAT explica porqué el acceso abierto es importante para el CGIAR y algunos pasos concretos que pueden tomarse para asegurar que los resultados de la investigación sean disponibles y accesibles.

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Acceso Abierto - RSS

Cultivating agricultural information management system using GIS

Improving agricultural efficiency is an issue not just for developed countries but for the entire world including emerging economies, and it is recognized that encouraging greater efficiency will intensify the need for greater use of information technology on the farm.

The Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd.'s agricultural information management system uses GIS technology to utilize and provide unified management of farm information about things like products, producers, yields, and quality.

Read more ...

Repositorios de Acceso Abierto para la Agricultura en Chile

Exponiendo en la Reunión RIBDA 2009 en Lima, Rodrigo Donoso de la Biblioteca de la Universidad Católica de Temuco (y RedagroChile) se reflexiona sobre la importancia de los repositorios en acceso abierto en agricultura en Chile.

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Acceso Abierto - RSS

Opening access to the CGIAR's knowledge

Speaking at the RIBDA 2009 meeting in Lima, CIAT's Edith Hesse explains why open access is important to the CGIAR, and some concrete steps that can be taken to ensure that research outputs are available and accessible:

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Open access - RSS feed

Medios Sociales y RedagroChile

Hablando en la RIBDA 2009 en Lima, Rodrigo Donoso explica como los medios sociales como Twitter son usados por RedagroChile.

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Livestock information network & knowledge system for livelihoods in East Africa

One project of the USAID-funded Global Livestock CRSP was called LINKS - Livestock Information Network and Knowledge System.

This project is placing ICTs inside a broader livestock information and analysis system that is designed to improve livestock markets and trade, thereby enhancing the
well-being of pastoralists in East Africa. LINKS technology was recently incorporated into the National Livestock Marketing Information System (NLMIS) active in Kenya.

See LINKS project publications on ICTs, phones, and markets in East Africa.