Agricultural Knowledge
and Information Systems
for Rural Development (AKIS/RD)
Strategic Vision
and
Guiding Principles
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS
THE WORLD BANK
Rome, 2000
PURPOSE
This
document has been prepared by the staff of the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Bank concerned with
agricultural education, research and extension and their integration into
Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems for Rural Development (AKIS/RD)
where rural people, especially farmers, are partners, not simply recipients.
It is intended as a vehicle for sharing ideas and principles with the various
stakeholders addressing the causes, and seeking solutions, for rural poverty.
It has four main purposes:
1. To
set forth a shared vision for an integrated approach to agricultural education,
research and extension which would respond to the technology, knowledge and
information needs of millions of rural people, helping them reach informed decisions
on the better management of their farms, households and communities.
2. To
facilitate dialogue with decision-makers, both in governments and in
development organizations, ensuring that proposals for investment in
Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems for Rural Development (AKIS/RD)
are well founded and receive due consideration.
3. To
provide the staff of FAO and the World Bank, and their counterparts in client
countries, with a common set of principles to guide their work in agricultural
education, research and extension.
4. To
ensure synergies from complementary investments in education, research and extension, resulting in more effective and
efficient systems.
The Challenge Is
Daunting
Most
poor people depend on agriculture
More than 1.3 billion people
worldwide live in poverty nearly
three-fourths of them in rural areas. Virtually all depend directly or
indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods. Many are farmers or
pastoralists, while others eke out a living from forestry or fishing. Others
are landless. With few assets, their economic activities are small in scale.
The productivity of their labour a key determinant of their income is low.
If the root causes of rural poverty are not addressed, an ever-increasing number
of poor rural people will hover on the edge of subsistence, with few, if any,
avenues to a better life.
Food
needs call for steady growth in agricultural production
Today,
more than 80 low-income developing countries suffer from chronic food deficits,
and about 800 million people live in hunger. By 2025, the worlds population
may exceed 8 billion and food needs in developing countries may nearly double.
To the extent that extra food and other raw materials can be produced
competitively by small farmers within food-deficit countries, this has the
triple benefit of increasing supplies, reducing rural poverty and improving
household food security. If unmatched by increases in food production, mounting
demand for food will raise prices and aggravate food insecurity worldwide while
swelling the ranks of the hungry.
Improving
rural incomes and raising agricultural production will often require
agricultural intensification
In
most countries there is little room for the horizontal expansion of farming.
Hence increasing the incomes of smallholder farm families will depend crucially
upon raising agricultural productivity. This will have to come primarily from
intensification of production on lands now being used. Where expansion does
occur, it will be increasingly on to less-favoured lands lands often remote,
environmentally fragile, and of limited productive potential. Consequently,
production (and productivity) on existing agricultural lands will nearly have
to double in the next 25 years if the anticipated growth in demand for food is
to be met largely from within developing countries. This can only be
accomplished through a combination of technological innovation, improved
farming skills and increased capacity of rural institutions (including farmers
organizations) to face the challenges of production, profitability and
sustainability. Without this, rural poverty and hunger will worsen.
Agricultural
intensification must be balanced with environmental sustainability
Expanding
the output of the land through intensified crop, forestry and livestock
practices will often have adverse environmental consequences, such as
deforestation, soil nutrient or groundwater depletion, chemical and waste
pollution, and loss of genetic diversity. Farmers and rural people in general
will have to pay greater attention than in the past to the sustainability of
production and to the broader environmental impact of their agricultural
activities. Where intensification threatens the natural resource base,
safeguards and resource replenishments will have to accompany production.
Rural
people also look to knowledge and information systems for guidance on how to
bring about general improvements in their livelihoods
Often
extension workers are the only outsiders working with rural communities and
hence they are looked to for advice, not only on farming technology but also on
other issues of topical concern such as nutrition and health (including
HIV/AIDS), population, community organization, finance, marketing, off-farm
employment and many other issues affecting rural living standards. How far each
element of an AKIS/RD moves beyond agriculture in responding to requests
depends on the strength and accessibility of more specialized services.
For
people living in this environment, knowledge is key
The
challenges ahead will bring the need for new technologies, new skills, changed
attitudes and new ways to collaborate. But technologies will be fully exploited
only if the knowledge of how to put them to use is widely disseminated. A
billion poor farmers make decisions on their farms every day. They range from
groups of women raising silkworms in China, to herders managing communal
grazing lands in the Sahel, to pensioners growing potatoes on dacha farms in
Russia, to apple growers bargaining for better prices in Turkey, to campesinos maintaining their own land
races of maize in Mexico. Farmers such as these possess valuable skills and
knowledge, but traditional farming systems by themselves cannot generate all
the skills, information and knowledge required for intensification of
production, stewardship of the land and increased integration into markets.
Farmers acting on their own many of them remote and difficult to reach are
ill-equipped to avail themselves of opportunities of which they may not even be
aware.
Farmers
cannot meet these challenges on their own
Doubling
agricultural productivity in an environmentally sustainable way in 25 years
poses a formidable challenge. To make it possible for a billion farmers to do
this on their own farms is a daunting task. For reasons now well understood,
meeting the challenge will require collective action by all AKIS/RD partners,
underpinned by vigorous leadership, initiative and adequate funding. Such
initiatives have been undertaken in virtually all countries in recent decades
in the form of large public AKIS/RD investments in agricultural education,
research and extension. These investments have yielded technological
breakthroughs in agricultural productivity, but they are now faced with new
challenges and opportunities for raising their effectiveness.
TECHNOLOGICAL RESPONSES TO THE CHALLENGE HAVE EMERGED
Agricultural
productivity and global food production have grown steadily
Since
the 1960s alone, cereal yields, for example, have nearly doubled globally while
world food production has increased by 80 percent more than half of this
coming from developing countries. Such gains have been made possible by
scientific advances, which have led to improved crop varieties and animal
breeds and better water and soil management practices. Scientific work towards
the development of integrated approaches to pest and disease control, and
farming systems compatible with their agroecological settings, have contributed
to the sustainability of the productivity gains.
These improvements have reduced poverty
for some rural people while providing affordable food for the urban poor and
limiting environmental degradation. Further scientific advances are expected
stemming, for example, from biotechnology.
The Challenge Has Been Only Partly Met
Many farmers fail to benefit from technological and other
advances
In
too many countries, the productivity and incomes of the poorer farmers have
stagnated or even decreased. This can be traced to a number of causes, such as poorly
functioning markets for inputs, products, or credit: it is not solely due to a
lack of investment in education, research or extension. But it does seem to be
true in general that the existing AKIS/RD institutions have not realized their
full potential.
The
AKIS/RD institutions have not been responsive enough in addressing the problems
and opportunities facing farmers
This,
together with related shortcomings in the existing AKIS/RD institutions, has
become increasingly clear in light of the advances described above. For
example:
Farmers needs do not sufficiently drive
the orientation of research and extension, and labour market requirements are
not adequately translated into curriculum design in agricultural training
institutions. Some AKIS/RDs are therefore not as relevant to the rural poor as
they should be.
The know-how and
technologies that are produced by AKIS/RDs, even when relevant, are not widely
taken up by farmers, suggesting a lack of effective transfer. Concerns over
cost-effectiveness mean that public research and extension services have
trouble ensuring their financial sustainability.
Public decision-makers are
often unaware of the actual results achieved and the long-term resource
allocations needed. Many public decision-makers are frustrated by the
disappointing levels of coverage of actual
face-to-face contacts between farmers and extensionists and researchers.
However, the same decision-makers often constrain outreach programmes through
budget cuts that further limit coverage.
In many settings, the quality of human
capital in AKIS/RDs is low, suggesting that investments in human capital
formation are inadequate and that the training and educational institutions
themselves are insufficiently responsive to changing demands.
A lack of systematic
collaboration among educators, researchers, extension staff and farmers has
limited the effectiveness and relevance of support services to the rural
sector.
New Opportunities Exist for Raising AKIS/RD Effectiveness
Advances in the agricultural sciences are crucial, but
other advances are also needed
Recent
accumulations in human, social and institutional capital have combined with
important advances in the social and natural sciences to expand our potential
for meeting the challenge. Three areas of progress provide the key: the
changing relationships between governments and people; the revolution in
information and communication technologies; and new concepts of learning and
problem solving.
Relationships are
changing between governments and people
Worldwide,
political and institutional developments are fundamentally altering the
relationships between government and people.
With increasing economic
liberalization, governments no longer provide services that can be more
effectively and efficiently offered by the private sector or civil-society
organizations. The public sector is now concentrating on creating a policy and
regulatory environment that catalyses private sector initiative, as well as on
improving the quality of services that only governments can offer.
Through democratization and
decentralization, governments are becoming more accountable to their
peoples; local authorities and a wider range of community members are gaining a
stronger voice in setting priorities for government actions.
These
developments can contribute to the potential for farmers (particularly the
poor) to have more dependable access to inputs and better options for marketing
their outputs. They also provide greater opportunities for farmers and their
communities to articulate their demands about the nature of services provided
to them by the public sector.
Communication
and information technologies are advancing rapidly
New
developments in communication and information technologies are making it
possible to share information widely, quickly and cheaply.
Except in extremely remote areas, most
rural people have access not only to national radio, but increasingly to local
community-based radio stations.
Access to telephones has increased
spectacularly, particularly in very poor countries. Consequently, verbal and
visual forms of communication are ever easier to establish and exploit. In this
sense, rural people are becoming much less isolated from each other and from
access to sources of advice and information.
Rapidly increasing numbers of education,
research and extension institutions have fax and access to the Internet. This
is reducing the isolation of professionals, allowing easier sharing of
knowledge. The information technology revolution is starting to expand access
for rural people to written and electronic forms of information and
communication, including distance learning systems.
These developments are providing everyone
within the broad AKIS/RD rural people as well as those who seek to assist
them with a steadily growing capacity for gathering, sharing and exploiting
information available beyond their institutions, communities and immediate
environs. Along with these developments, however, comes a danger of unequal
access -- rural areas are less served than urban areas, and rural women
in particular have less access to new information and communication
technologies.
New
concepts are emerging for participation in learning and problem solving
A
range of participatory methods and tools has been developed to help rural
people to diagnose problems, gather information, explore options, and commit
themselves to action, often collective action. Education and training are no
longer seen simply as processes of transferring knowledge or information, but
rather as means to empower people to become critical thinkers and problem
solvers who are better able to help themselves, but also better able to engage
with others in order to learn, share information and address problems and
priorities. This is very important for farmers whose ability to cope with the
unpredictable is often the key to survival.
Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems need to
seize these new opportunities to address their shortcomings
Building on these institutional and people-oriented
advances and developments, it is now becoming clear how AKIS/RDs might respond
directly to their shortcomings
Education,
research and extension institutions, particularly in the public sector, have
been slow to exploit the potential of economic liberalization, democratization
and decentralization. Thus research and extension agendas have not responded
sufficiently to new market opportunities for added value or product
diversification and increased input availability. Similarly, the social and
economic sciences are still missing from the curricula of many agricultural
training establishments. Very few extension and research institutes have been
proactive in exploiting advances in communication and information technology,
for example by using them to establish links to each other, to the outside
world and to farmer organizations. Too many retain top-down systems of
management, teaching and interaction with their clients, with little room for
meaningful participation by farmers in guiding the direction of the programmes.
Talk and chalk remains the usual mode of teaching at institutes for
agricultural education, while curricula tend to be narrowly focused on farming
technologies, rather than the broader needs of rural sector society. Few
agricultural education programmes have incorporated new, participatory concepts
of learning and problem solving.
If
AKIS/RDs stick to business as usual, support for them could be threatened
Although governments have continued allocating resources
to support public agricultural research and extension programmes, many have
been frustrated by the perceived failure to alleviate the ongoing plight of
poor farmers. Even if governments give due priority to meeting the challenge of
rural poverty, their confidence in research and extension programmes will
understandably wane without clear evidence that they are having a visible
impact. Moreover, as public resources continue to flow and the associated
opportunity costs mount, issues of accountability within these programmes will
loom ever larger, ultimately threatening their support.
Building
on the advances described above, AKIS/RDs can now be transformed
Despite past shortcomings, AKIS/RDs can help rural
people improve their livelihoods, and it is becoming ever clearer how they can
be designed to do so better. Today, through advances in agricultural
technology, in rearranged public/ private responsibilities, in information and
communication technologies, and in methods of participatory learning, AKIS/RDs
can help the rural poor to benefit more than ever from agricultural research,
extension and education programmes. The following sections offer a strategic
vision for what might be accomplished through AKIS/RDs, together with
principles and guidelines for realizing the vision.
The Strategic vision
Ideally,
farmers of all types would have the capacity in terms of knowledge, skills,
attitudes, information and technologies and motivation to run their farming
enterprises productively, profitably and sustainably, contributing to the
emergence of a rural society no longer plagued by poverty and food insecurity.
Their capacity to do this would be supported by an AKIS/RD which would:
accurately identify
constraints and opportunities faced by male and female farmers and herders and
their wider communities, engaging scientific methods to generate appropriate
and sustainable economic, social and technological responses;
help rural people, particularly farmers,
marshal social skills and technologies to augment their productivity, manage
their natural resources sustainably, raise their incomes, collaborate
effectively with one another in addressing their common problems, and become
meaningfully involved with all major stakeholders in determining the process of
further technology generation and adoption;
enable governments to carry out activities
for the public good for example, ensuring food safety, conserving the
environment, reducing poverty and promoting education, research and extension,
whether from public or private suppliers; and
provide education and continuous training
and mutual learning opportunities for educators, researchers, extensionists and
farmers alike, allowing them to work together effectively.
Within such an AKIS/RD, the public
sector, the private commercial sector and civil society would each
participate meaningfully in decisions about the design, implementation, funding
and evaluation of education, research and extension programmes. Farmers, in
particular, would be empowered to occupy a prominent and influential position
within the system.
Strategic Emphasis
Successful pursuit of the vision requires strategic
emphasis on:
making the whole AKIS/RD financially,
socially and technically more sustainable;
improving the relevance as well as the
effectiveness of the processes of knowledge and technology generation, sharing
and uptake;
making AKIS/RD more demand-driven through
empowerment of farmers, particularly those who are marginalized and
disadvantaged, so that they might participate more meaningfully in AKIS
decisions and priority setting in order that AKIS/RD programmes would be more
responsive to their needs;
increasing the interface between and
integration among the various education, research, extension and farming
activities; and
building accountability to assure that each
stakeholder assumes his/her respective responsibilities, that performance
failures are identified and that appropriate responses are made.
and Guiding Principles
for AKIS/RD Programme Design
Programmes
in agricultural education, research and extension that are built on sound
guiding principles will begin to achieve AKIS/RD objectives poverty
reduction, agricultural productivity gains, food security and environmental
sustainability. Such programmes will display the following design
characteristics:
Economic efficiency. The benefits of
AKIS/RD programmes are shown to be commensurate with costs, and programmes are
tailored to a scale that is commensurate with, and justified by, expected
outcomes.
Careful match between comparative advantages
of organizations and the functions they perform. The rationale for all
organizations involved must be clearly stated and in accordance with the
concepts in the box on pages 16 and 17. This means that the public sectors
involvement in AKIS/RD programmes is clarified and focuses on core public
good functions.
Subsidiarity. Operational authority
and responsibilities for AKIS/RD programmes are allocated based on the
principle of subsidiarity, whereby decision-making devolves to the lowest
possible level of government consistent with organizational competencies and
efficient use of funds. Resources, including funds, are assigned to each level
based on its allocated responsibilities. This often implies the
decentralization and devolution of authority and responsibility within the
public sector for service delivery.
Clear repartition of costs. The main
stakeholders in AKIS/RD programmes share the burden of funding AKIS/RD
activities based upon agreed criteria, including their ability to pay and their
use of services. The central government assumes a share of the cost burden,
covering the cost of public goods (see box) and avoiding investment in private
goods. Local governments, the private commercial sector and client farmers
themselves also shoulder part of the financial burden.
Careful assessment and optimal mixing of
funding and delivery mechanisms. Funders do not necessarily have to be
implementers. Even though central and local governments help fund AKIS/RD
programmes, they do not necessarily directly deliver programme services. Some
AKIS/RD services and products are contracted to outside sources such as private
firms and NGOs which may broaden the range of service providers, raise the
operational efficiency of AKIS/RD programmes and make AKIS/RD workers more
accountable for their performance and results. Similarly, private funds from
the commercial sector and civil society may be used to support public sector
delivery.
Pluralistic and participatory approaches.
Various approaches to service delivery attuned to local conditions are used
that lead to the empowerment of local communities and other ARKIS/RD
stakeholders releasing their initiative and problem-solving ability and mobilizing
their resources. A range of stakeholders and organizations with different
strengths are promoted to increase mutual learning, self-correction and the
robustness of AKIS/RD.
Effective linkages among farmers, educators,
researchers, extensionists and other AKIS/RD stakeholders. AKIS/RD
programmes and institutions are explicitly designed to create synergies and
collaboration among stakeholders in all three AKIS/RD domains. Farmers and
their partners in each ARKIS/RD programme area are provided with resources
and/or the authority to purchase and/or influence the services provided in each
of the other domains.
Building human and social resources. AKIS/RD
programmes incorporate resources and incentives for educating a new generation
of staff capable of empowering their rural clients to exploit fully the latest
relevant advances in agricultural technology, in rearranged public/private
responsibilities, in new information and communication technologies, and in
concepts for participatory learning and problem solving.
Sound monitoring and evaluation.
AKIS/RD programmes would be results-oriented with rigorous systems for
monitoring progress towards achieving goals and for evaluating outcomes.
Monitoring and evaluation are based not only on economic criteria for
calculating cost-effectiveness, but also on human-resource, institutional, and
environmental criteria to ensure comprehensive impact accounting.
Applying these Principles
Operational
guidelines, inspired by this shared vision and consistent with the principles
outlined here, are under preparation by the World Bank and FAO.
For
additional information contact:
Research, Extension and Training Division
(SDR)
Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations
Via delle Terme di Caracalla
00100 - Rome - Italy
Phone: +39-06-570-56196
Fax: +39-570-55246
http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/sustdev/
Thematic Group on AKIS
The World Bank
1818 H Street, N.W.
Washington D.C. 20433 - USA
Phone: 1-202-458-7287
or 1-202-473-2456
Fax: 1-202-522-3308
http://www.esd.worldbank.org/extension/