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Accessing, sharing and communicating agricultural information for development: Emerging trends and issues

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Title Accessing, sharing and communicating agricultural information for development: Emerging trends and issues
 
Creator Ballantyne, Peter G.
 
Description The recent food crisis has helped to push agriculture and food security back on to national and development agendas. Additional international funds have been mobilized, national and regional initiatives have been strengthened, and a wide range of new and innovative instruments and approaches have been promised. Most of these efforts call for greater investment in knowledge creation, information access, and the wider use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This paper explores what this renewed interest might mean for information and communication specialists working in agriculture. Starting from an ‘innovation systems’ perspective, it looks across the agricultural information for development landscape, highlighting some items on the agenda of information and communication specialists working in this area. Agenda items include: The widening recognition of the value of farmer knowledge, growing use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enable different agricultural development activities, concerns to ensure that public investments result in public goods whose benefits can travel, related efforts to ensure that agricultural content is open and accessible, the discovery and increasing use of a â€~social’ web, and some emerging new roles for agricultural library and information centers to meet changing demands.
2009-11-16T11:46:50Z
2009-11-16T11:46:50Z
2009-11-01
Journal Article
Ballantyne, P.G. 2009. Accessing, Sharing and Communicating Agricultural Information for Development: emerging trends and issues. Information Development, 25(4): 260-271
http://hdl.handle.net/10568/122
en
Information Development

oai:cgspace.cgiar.org:10568/3632018-09-23T09:37:49Zcom_10568_1com_10568_231com_10568_79164com_10568_27866col_10568_3col_10568_607
Characterisation and validation of farmers’ knowledge and practice of cattle trypanosomosis management in the cotton zone of West Africa
Grace, Delia
Randolph, Thomas F.
Affognon, H.D.
Dramane, D.
Diall, O.
Clausen, P.H.
We carried out a knowledge, attitude, practice (KAP) survey on how farmers (n = 895) manage cattle trypanosomosis in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea. Most farmers (96%) recognised the common signs of trypanosomosis, 70% knew the role of tsetse flies in transmitting the disease and 96% had knowledge of drugs used for treatment. Farmers reported that trypanosomosis was the most important cattle disease and estimated that 25% of their herd fall sick each year and 18% of the sick animals die. Nearly all sick animals (90%) were treated with trypanocides and most treatments were administered by untrained farmers. Giving drugs was the strategy most used as primary means of protection (50% of farmers) followed by avoiding high risk areas (32% of farmers) and keeping trypanotolerant cattle (7% of farmers). Few farmers knew about communal tsetse control methods and those who did, rarely practiced them. Farmer diagnosis of trypanosomosis in cattle presented at clinics (n = 113) was in most cases (84%) supported by laboratory tests. However, the signs that most farmers considered indicative of trypanosomosis (staring coat and emaciation) were poor predictors of trypanosomosis. We tested farmer knowledge of injection sites and trypanocide dilutions (n = 423 cattle), and while few (15%) farmers gave under-dosages or over-dosage (2% of farmers), injection techniques were poor with injection-related side effects in 24% of cattle treated by farmers. Despite this, therapeutic outcomes were both objectively (clinical parameters) and subjectively (carer assessment) satisfactory in 89% of cattle treated by farmers. This study found that farmers play a major role in successfully managing trypanosomosis and recommends the recognition and support for community based treatment.
 
Date 2010-01-05T18:32:50Z
2010-01-05T18:32:50Z
2009-08-15
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Grace, D.; Randolph, T.F.; Affognon, H.; Dramane, D.; Diall, O.; Clausen, P.-H. 2009. Characterisation and validation of farmers’ knowledge and practice of cattle trypanosomosis management in the cotton zone of West Africa. Acta Tropica 111(2): 137-143.
http://hdl.handle.net/10568/363
 
Language en
 
Source Acta Tropica