The Use of Participatory Approaches in Developing ICT‐Based Systems for Disseminating Agricultural Knowledge and Information for Farmers in Developing Countries: The Case of Tanzania

Abstract

This paper provides an insight on the use of various participatory approaches to develop ICTs to the rural farming communities. The paper shows how collective groups of farmers can be empowered through involvement of different stakeholders in a participatory action research. The paper also discusses how participatory action research will help the farming community in adopting ICT‐based solutions for agriculture. This in turn will contribute in solving problems as well as assisting decision making in identifying technological and agricultural needs. In this study, a total of 64 researchers and extension workers and 320 rural farmers were involved. Primary data were collected using a self‐administered questionnaire and interviews. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics tool. The results indicate that many ICT‐based solutions for agriculture are not adopted by farmers and other stakeholders in various agricultural value chains because those ICTs were developed without using participatory approaches. Moreover, the results from study indicate that participatory action research approaches such as Participatory Communication (PV), Participatory Video (PV), Participatory Learning and Action Research (PLAR), Farmer Participatory Research (FPR), Informal‐Mobile Learning Research (IMLR) have a significant impact on the effective use of ICTs in rural farming community and the agricultural domain in general. Among of these participatory approaches, the IMLR and PLAR have shown to be more effective because of availability and interactive mobile learning environments that excite interests, commitments and encourages participatory attitudes among famers and researchers. This study provides an evident that ICTs has a dominant position to alleviate rural poverty and strengthen the agriculture productivity through participatory approaches. We recommend that a strong commitment of all actors in agriculture value chain is needed so that they can collaborate to identify the problem, analysis and design possible solutions and finally, implement and later on use those developed ICTs to increase agriculture productivity.

Retooling GSM-based Services to Link Rural Farmers with Knowledge Experts

“…KEs are comfortable in doing so due to the strong support of farming community beneficiaries. This confirms that the establishment of support and dedication with stakeholders [18][19][20] are very important factors in knowledge sharing systems.…”

SMS-Based ICT Tool for Knowledge Sharing in Agriculture

“…It is commendable to consider some benchmarks whichever technology is utilized. Firstly, establish a supportive and dedicated effort over various stakeholders [44]- [46]. Secondly, the gamification of the system [32] with a quota-based reward instrument [47].…”

“…It was also found out that KEs who intensely believe that there is strong support among the farming communities will likely feel more comfortable to share knowledge. This explains why most studies recommend establishing a supportive and dedicated effort over various stakeholders [44]- [46] when introducing a KSS.…”

How do development actors do “ICT for development”? A strategy‐as‐practice perspective on emerging practices in Ghanaian agriculture

“…Importantly, research demonstrates that smallholders use a mixture of contemporary and legacy technologies, while relying on in-person channels, accessed through formal and informal networks, for agricultural knowledge and information exchange (Barakabitze, Fue, & Sanga, 2017;Flor & Cisneros, 2015;Hudson, Leclair, Pelletier, & Sullivan, 2017;Islam & Grönlund, 2007;Prakash & De', 2007;Venkatesh & Sykes, 2013). Therefore, in considering the technology-enabled outreach activities of development actors, we maintain a broad understanding of the term "ICT."…”

“…Importantly, research demonstrates that smallholders use a mixture of contemporary and legacy technologies, while relying on in‐person channels, accessed through formal and informal networks, for agricultural knowledge and information exchange (Barakabitze, Fue, & Sanga, ; Flor & Cisneros, ; Hudson, Leclair, Pelletier, & Sullivan, ; Islam & Grönlund, ; Prakash & De', ; Venkatesh & Sykes, ). Therefore, in considering the technology‐enabled outreach activities of development actors, we maintain a broad understanding of the term “ICT.” We view it as encompassing contemporary technologies (ie, mobile short message service [SMS] and voice technology, web portals, integrated voice response [IVR], purpose‐built digital technologies developed in‐house, etc), as well as legacy technologies (ie, radio, TV, audio and video recordings, traditional broadcasting, etc).…”