empowerment of farmers through ict
TRANSCRIPT
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Draft paper for ECOSOC Expert Group Meeting on Promoting Empowerment of People in Advancing Poverty Eradication, Social Integration, and Decent Work for All, UN HQ, NYC, September 10‐12, 2012
Empowerment of Farmers through ICT
Norman Uphoff, Cornell University
1.0 Introduction
Many perspectives and many experiences could be provided on this subject. Some persons have specialized in the adaptation and integration of new electronic and digitized communications media for the benefit of farmers and other sectors of society whose economic and social advancement is the concern of ECOSOC and UN member governments as well as civil society.My perspective, however, is that of an applied social scientist who has spent over 40 years engaged in multiple rural development efforts with a continuous concern for participation and empowerment.1Serendipitously, in recent years I have become engaged in using a considerable range of electronic communications media for the promotion worldwide of an unprecedented agroecological innovation. This experience has engendered a confluence of theoretical and practical perspectives on the empowerment of farmers and others through ICT.
This paper is thusnot a survey of ICT options,although manyare considered in section 1.4. Rather this is a first‐hand report from someone who ‐‐after dealing with participation and empowerment issues both analytically and practically for several decades ‐‐is now engaged with colleagues across many sectors, in over 50 countries,in an effort to reach and empower millions of smallholding farmers around the world. ICT by facilitating the promotion of changes in agricultural production methods ishelpingmany rural householdsto enhance their food security and raise their incomes, promote greater self‐confidence and innovation, contribute to environmental sustainability, and mitigate climate‐change effects.
As a social scientist, I have been teaching and writing on power and empowerment since joining the faculty of Cornell University in 1970. Among the varioussubjectsthat I have worked on, these two concepts – power and empowerment ‐‐are some of the most complex and elusive in the social sciences, although they can be made fairly concrete through attentive analysis (Uphoff, 1989; Ilchman and Uphoff, 1998). We all know the saying: "Everyone talks about the weather,but nobody does anything about it."In similar fashion, almost everybody talks about power and empowerment these days, yet practically nobody examines and treats these subjectswith the rigorand clarity that they deserve. In a separate paper prepared for this EGM, I have suggested some ways of thinking and talking about power and empowermentin ways that are purposefully rigorous and analytical. Here I address the topic assigned to me.
1These publications include Cohen and Uphoff (1980), Esman and Uphoff (1984), and Uphoff (1985, 1988, 1992a, 1992b, 1993, 2005), and Uphoff et al. (1998).
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2.0The Roles of Information and Communication in Development
Assessing the contributions that new technologies for information and communication (ICT) can make to poverty reduction, social integration and employment creation requires some understanding of and agreement on the rolesthat these technologies have in development. During the 1970s and 1980s, we had a multidisciplinary Rural Development Committee at Cornell University which focused on three major factors in development: resources, technology and organization. These constitute, in effect,'the factors of production for development' ‐‐ equivalent to land, labor and capital in economics, 'development' being definedbroadly as thecapacity to meet people's needs and wants(Uphoff and Ilchman 1972). Thinking about resources, technology and organization asmeta‐factors of development makes clearer, I think, where information and communication fit into development equations and strategies.
The three domains of resources, technology, and organization make different and respective contributions to the capacities of countries, communities, and individuals for meeting human needs and wants.
• Resources represent the broad category of inputsinto processes of production, whether these are economic, social or political, that can meet needs and wants.
• Technology refers to everything from knowledge to machinery that is required toconvert available inputsefficiently and effectively into more, or more valued,outputs, for meeting people's needs and wants more fully, reliably or innovatively.
• Organization then pertains to the social, economic, administrative and other structures that canmanage the various processes of production that are necessary to meet human needs and wants. This includes functions like accessing resources and adapting technology.
These meta‐factors of development resemble land, labor and capital in that there can be diminishing returns in any one of these three domains if it is worked on and expanded without making appropriate modifications and increases in the other two. Further, any of these three can become a bottleneck for development, and needing particular attention and improvement so that these three meta‐factors can contribute conducivelyand complementarily to capacity for meeting needs and wants.
These three broad categories should be regarded asnested in that organization is the encompassing factor within which technology is employed to utilize available or acquirableresources to best advantage. They are not simply separate domains. Organization can be a crucial factor in expanding the acquisition of resources and then managing them to best effect.
Where do information and communication come into this conceptual scheme? In our Rural Development Committee discussions, some suggested that information and communication could be a fourth factor of production, in the way that some people have proposed technology as an additional factor alongside land, labor and capital. While recognizing the great importance of information (and the communication of information) for raising and sustaining productivity, however, our conclusion was that theseideational factors can and should be understood as related (concurrently and respectively) to all three of these meta‐factors of production.
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Information has value and productivity not in itself but in what it can do to make each of these three factors more productive, i.e., contributing to the meeting of people's needs and wants.
Not everyone may accept this conclusion, but it is presented here to propose an instrumental view of information and communication, and accordingly such a view of ICT. We should consider what IC/ICT can do to expand people's knowledge of and access to both resources and appropriate technologies andto improve the functioning and scope of organizations that are beneficial, particularly with reference to empowerment, security, employment, and other development goals. Improving the functioning and scope of ICTs for their own sake has little merit according to this formulation, but it has a crucial and potentially powerful role in achieving these goals.
3.0Empowerment for Farmers in Developmental Context
ICT can be empowering for farmers, particularly poorly‐endowed ones with limited assets and purchasing power, to the extent that these information and communication technologies:
a. Enable them to gain access to and control over more and better resources on favorable terms, which they can contribute to their own or others' production processes and for which they can get remuneratively compensated;
b. Inform them about and give them access to new or better technologies that can make their available resources more productive, and also better knowledge and skills for utilizing these technologies; and/or
c. Link them into organizations, formal or informal, that give them access on favorable terms to resources and technologies as well as to markets for their products, and also enable farmers' organizations to function more effectively, using their available resources and technologies more productively.
These wordings refer quite evidently in the first instance to economic processes of production; but with appropriate modifications they can refer similarly to social and political processes that are also capable of empowering farmers. Particularly the third function (c.) is important as various forms of organization are appropriate to improving farmers' political and social as well as economic bargaining power, and for acquiring and protecting both social status and political rights. When widely accessible and oriented toward meeting the needs and solving the problems of farmers, ICT can create, enlarge and sustain what Shambu Prasad and Sen (2010) have called 'the knowledge commons.'
4.0 EarlierChannelsfor Information and Communication that Benefited Farmers
There has been a succession of technologies that have provided information and communication facilities to farmers in the past. In much earlier times, traditional schooling from elders, and various means for word‐of‐mouth communication had to suffice. Also, from time immemorial there have been certain institutions that facilitated information flow, such as theregular markets that brought people together periodically within what we might now consider as a 'marketshed' (Johnson 1970), or pilgrimages to holy sites, when much informationwas exchanged among participants beyond religious thoughts and ideas.
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For many centuries, formal schooling was a very labor‐intensive technology/organization for imparting information and knowledge. This continues to be a major source of information in rural areas, although informal channels of oral communication, not formed or driven by any technology, remain usuallythe most important and most credible. The range for such communication is expanded by transportation technologies that are not considered part of ICT. Automobiles, bicycles, trucks, lorries, tro‐tros, and other mechanical means facilitate people's movement.
As literacy has spread, and as costs of printing and publication have come down, written communication(books, manuals, fliers, handouts, etc.) became important for transmitting information within rural areas. While this medium is dependent on literacy for its effectiveness, only a few persons in a community needed to be able to read, as they could convey the substance of written communication orally to those who did not had little or no education.
A major innovation for dissemination of information to farmers, introduced and expanded during the 20th century, hasbeen the formation ofextension services, particularly for agriculture. These were more matter of organization than technology, but they complemented oral communication with written media, and then with audio‐visual technology (recordings, films, posters, radio, television, etc.). The latter added dramatic and persuasive power to more didactic extension methods of oral presentations and printed materials.Extension programs commonly supplemented their oral and written communications with demonstrations, whether crop plots or training sessions, to make the content of communication more visual and experiential.
Public‐sector and NGO extension services were complemented by, and sometimes were in competition with,commercial organizations that undertook to communicate with farmers and acquaint them with resource and technology opportunities for their own financial interests. This could be done in ways that were 'win‐win' for farmers and businesses, although their empowerment effects were usually less than with public or civil‐society extension efforts as the latter often had the empowerment of farmers as one of its goals, whereas that was not a commercial objective.
5.0Contemporary Technologies for Information and Communication that Can Benefit Farmers
When the term ICT is used today, it usually refers to a variety of technologies for the dissemination and exchange of information that have developed over the last 30 years, particularly with the rise of electronic communications and the internet. The World Wide Web was developed initially with military applications in mind, but it was taken over and propelled from the 1980s on by myriad business interests. Thesehave acceleratedthe technological improvements in ICT and have utilized ICT facilities for their own commercial purposes that were by and large compatible with individual/personal needs and wants.
The World Wide Web made possible email communication, which can reach hundreds, even thousands of people with little cost in time or money.Email communications together withwebsiteson the World Wide Web constituted the first main operational 'platform' for ICT. Extensions and applications of these two basic facilities have further magnified communication possibilities, perhaps as much as the advance introduced by having access to email and the internet.
A great advance came with the introduction ofsearch‐engine capabilities on the Web, most notably with Google, but other internet search services such as Bing and Yahoo have also become available across cyberspace. These electronic facilities make a massive, indeed a previously unimaginable amount of information and knowledge available to anyone, at nominal or no cost. Farmers in remote areas, if they can get internet access, can now avail themselves of the knowledge resources of not just one of the best libraries in the world, but of many. This they can do without leaving their homes if connected there.
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These services havea downside in that much of what is posted and available on the internet has not been vetted for accuracy or correctness, as would be attempted with a system of publication or a process of peer‐review. So a lot of misinformation and even disinformation is available on the Web; without much education (and a critical frame of mind), what is learned from the Web can be useless or even harmful. However, so far the positives of internet access have greatly outweighed the negatives.
Agencies and professionals (governmental and non‐governmental) who work with farmers to help them raise productivity, meet food‐security objectives, improve health, etc. ‐‐ and who have access to the internet ‐‐ can serve as intermediaries to acquire and disseminate information of benefit to farmers when and where farmers cannot have and maintain their own connectivity. Still, in the last 3‐5 years, the number of farmers having internet access has been growing rapidly, from an admittedly small base, and especially the younger generation of farmers is gaining a connectivity that can make farming a more enjoyable and respectable occupation as well as a more remunerative one.
Farmers are not just gaining access to better technological information and options, but are also gaining market information and access to more remunerative market, to become able to get better returns from the use of their available resources. To provide internet connectivity to whole communities where individuals do not have financial or technical means for this, there have been a growing number of experiments with setting up ICT centers at village level, as has been done by the M.S. Swaminathan Foundation with its Information Village Resource Centers in Tamil Nadu, India, for example (MSSRF 2009).
Use of mobile phones with multiple applications is now expanding rapidly in developing countries, giving rural people who have no access to landline phones an opportunity to communicate quickly, and fairly cheaply, with others within their and other communities. Voice communicationby phone is important, but so is'texting' with cheaper and equally fast SMS (short message service) communication. Currently becoming more important is the access to internet services and information that 'smart' mobile phones can give, making ICT no longer dependent on computers, either desktop or laptop. Farmers' access to marketing information and weather forecasts has begun changing how they manage and benefit from their agriculture. Mobile banking is being added as another application for mobile phones to give rural people greater access to financial resources, and to get more benefit from those resources that they already dispose of.2
Another innovative application of ICT is electronic personal identification, including biometric records, such as is being used in India with its National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) programme. This can make benefits and services intended to empower the poor with income guarantees more effective and justifiable, by reducing the 'leakages' through bureaucratic fraud and corruption that have plagued poverty‐reduction programmes in India for years. Large amounts have been expended for 'phantom' poor or for payments that never reached the poor as intended, giving politicians and the public grounds for opposing anti‐poverty efforts in general. Some have worried about a 'Big Brother' state being strengthened by such means; but the current situation is one where bogus poverty relief often contributes to continued deprivation. While there can be negatives with this as with almost any technological application, having an inviolate identity creates a source of individual power for mostof a country's poor citizens, who will fare better with more honest and transparent governance than with pseudo‐benign administrative controls.
2About 60 million people worldwide are making use of mobile banking services, one‐third of them in Kenya. According to one report, Kenyans are already making about half of the world's mobile money transfers, which amountto around US$10 billion. While this could be an overstatement, it indicates that there is much scope for this kind of ICT utilization in developing countries.
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Another domain for expanding ICT options is what getcalled loosely thesocial media. This includes a number of networked systems of communication such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, which can be means for communities of interest or communities of practice to communicate quickly, easily and with a sense of mutual benefit. The internet service known as YouTubehas enabled practitioners (government personnel, NGO staff, researchers, students, farmers) to share images, not just words and numbers, quickly and with little cost. At the same time,Mendeley, a kind of on‐line service similar to Facebook, is facilitating communities of researchers intheir sharing articles and references quickly, cheaply and with ease. This makes their respective and collective outputs of new knowledge better informed about what else has already been researched and published and helps they stay current on the literature for a subject.
For developmental purposes, perhaps the most significant element of this 'social' ICT sector is blogging, which has become a widespread alternative system for communicating ideas, experiences, technologies, evaluations, even pleas for solutions to problems. This is of use mostly for persons who are working with farmers, to assist them in improving their technologies and strengthening their organizations. But we are starting to see farmers in some less‐developed countries tapping in to blog information, or sometimes even operating their own blogs, such as the Surin Farmers' Support Association in Thailand (http://www.surinfarmersupport.org/2008/08/sri.html).
Being more substance‐oriented than most of the 'social media,' blogsgo a step beyond the internet networksthat have sprung up over many years to serve various communities of interest and communities of practice through list‐serves or other computer‐based networking services. These combine email connections with websitesto support worldwide and often diverse aggregations of persons. A good example of this is the Conservation Agriculture community‐of‐practice network based with FAO: http://www.fao.org/ag/ca/CA_CoP.html
Experience with these widely differing technologies is stillaccumulating, so no final evaluation is possible or necessary at this time. We should seek to learn quickly and widely from both successes that enhance the resources, skills, capabilities and contexts of farmers and from all those less satisfactory situations in which intentions are not fulfilled or expectations are not met.
The main part of this paper will focus on a current, ongoing experience in which a number of these ICT elements have been used to disseminate a pro‐poor, environmentally‐friendly, farmer‐empowering agroecological innovation. Thanks to the use of a variety of electronic communication means supplementing personal contacts and networks, the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) has gotten started in over 50 countries since it was developed in Madagascar in the 1980s and was validated in China and Indonesia in 2000. Probably more than 5 million farmers (households) are already benefiting from the knowledge that SRI gives them for creating better growing environments for their rice crops, above and below ground, and increasingly for other crops as well. Various ICTs have played important roles in this phenomenon.
6.0The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) as an Agroecological Innovation
The System of Rice Intensification is an unusual, even unprecedented innovation in a number of ways.
• First, SRI derives from three decades of observation, experimentation and collaboration with farmers by a French priest, Fr. Henri de Laulanié (Laulanié 1993), rather than from scientific research. This may account in part for why SRI has met with resistence from some scientists, with some even proposing that SRI should not even be evaluated (Sinclair 2004; Sinclair and Cassman, 2004).
• Instead of relying on improved varieties and purchased agrochemical inputs, the strategy that succeeded in the Green Revolution, SRI achieves its higher yield and other benefits with neither new
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seeds nor chemical fertilizer. SRI succeeds just by changing the way that farmersmanage their plants, soil, water and nutrients. This makes the innovationmore accessible for poor farmers if and when they are willing and able to change their thinking about crop production and their ensuing practices.
• Paradoxically, with SRI thegreater yield is achieved with fewer inputs, since the methodology reduces plant populations and seed requirements by 80‐90% andrequirements for irrigation water by 25‐50% (and sometimes more), and substitutes compost or other organic inputs as much as possible for chemical fertilizer. By skillful and appropriate use of their resources farmers get more output with less expenditure, and even with less labor once they have gained skill and confidence in the new methods.
• The increases in output are quite remarkable, 20% to 50% to 100%, or more. With SRI practices, poor farmers are often able to raise their outputs by multiples rather than by increments. This is done by capitalizing upon biological potentials and processes that already exist in crop plants, in the soil systems they grow in, and in the beneficial plant‐microbial interactions that parallel those of the human microbiome. These potentials can be suppressed or blocked by conventional crop management practices such as continuous flooding which makes the soil hypoxic and suffocates plant roots and by close spacing of plants which reduces their photosynthetic activities. Last kharif season, in the Indian state of Bihar, a first‐year SRI farmer set a new world record yield for paddy, 22.4 tons per hectare, measured with standard criteria and accepted by government officials (Diwakar et al. 2012).
• In addition to saving water and seed, SRI management practices produce plant phenotypes that are more resistance to biotic (pest and disease) and abiotic (climatic) stresses, because the plants themselves have better root systems and more favorable plant‐microbial interactions. Such characteristics will become more and more important, especially for the poor, as our world encounters the effects of climate change – drought, storm damage, extreme temperatures, etc. (Uphoff 2011).
• SRI is not presented as a package of fixed practices, as was Green Revolution technology. It is seen as a set of insights and principles that get manifested in specific changes in crop management that diverge from several age‐old practices, like continuous flooding of paddies, transplanting older seedlings, and putting 3‐6 plants together in each hill. Farmers are expected to do some experimenting and evaluating for themselves, so that they become adapters, rather than adopters, and even become innovators. The extension of SRI ideas and methods to other crops – wheat, sugarcane, finger millet, etc. – has come from farmers' creativity, and many SRI farmers have themselves become voluntary extenders of SRI to their peers. The name of the NGO which Fr. Laulanié established with Malagasy colleagues in 1990 to promote was named Association TefySaina – meaning 'to improve the mind.' So human resource development has been part of the SRI phenomenon from its beginnings.
• In Madagascar, Cambodia and Indonesia already, SRI farmers have formed their own organizations which can enter into market relationships with national and even international buyers to get better prices for their higher‐quality grain (e.g., http://www.lotusfoods.com/SRI/AboutSRI.aspx). Those NGOs and government agencies which have taken up the dissemination of SRI knowledge have most of them been attracted by the empowerment aspects of SRI along with its agronomic advantages and its climate‐change buffering.
As seen in the next section, the progress of SRI's spread around the world depended crucially in the initial years upon the use of email communication, backed up by a website on the internet. Now in recent years, a number of other ICTs have been utilized to bring knowledge and opportunities, either directly or indirectly, to millions of farmers to support their economic and social advancement.
7.0 ICT Contributions to SRI Dissemination Although the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development (CIIFAD) began working with Association TefySaina in 1994 to introduce to small‐scale, mostly subsistence farmers in the
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peripheral zone around Ranomafana National Park in Madagascar to SRI methods, CIIFAD did not begin communicating about SRI outside the country until 1997, after farmers there who used the methods had had average paddy yields of 8 tons/hectare for three years, four times more than their previous usual yields of just 2 tons/hectare.
CIIFAD's first communications about SRI were quite conventional: a seminar presentation in October 1997 to rice scientists of the Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development at its CRIFC center in Bogor, and a colorful picture on the cover of its1996‐97 Annual Report showing a Malagasy rice farmer standing in his prolific SRI field. A long caption inside the cover explained how the farmer shown had more than tripled his paddy yields by using SRI methods. About 1,500 copies of the Report were distributed to libraries, administrators, development specialists, Cornell faculty and students. Surprisingly there was not a single inquiry generated by this report from anyone wanting to know how the farmer shown on the Report cover had managed to triple his yields with less seeds, water and fertilizer.
7.1 Basic ICT Support for SRI Dissemination
From 1997 on, email traffic concerning SRI began building up; and in 2002, a website dedicated to SRI information and communication was established by Lucy Fisher, at the time CIIFAD's communications support specialist and now Director of Communications for SRI‐Rice. The SRI website (http://sri.ciifad.cornell.edu) has grown by at least an order of magnitude over the past decade, becoming a major free‐access source of knowledge and means of communication. The email and website were supplemented by periodic 'updates' sent to a large list‐serve from August 2005 until March 2009 (http://sri.ciifad.cornell.edu/listservs/index.html#rice). These updates sent by email gave subscribers links to the website, so that anyone interested could get more information from the latter source.
A Spanish language list‐serve, SICA‐America Latina, was established in 2008, and now has 27 members. It gained momentumfrom a regional SRI/SICA workshop for Latin America and the Caribbean, held at Earth University in Costa Rica in October 2011, with participants from 10 countries. This underscored the importance of having some face‐to‐faceacquaintance among colleagues to make the best use of electronic media.
When the SRI International Network and Resources Center (SRI‐Rice) was established under CIIFAD's auspices in August 2010 with a gift from Jim Carrey's Better U Foundation, the website was modernized with better search engines and more features. The most recent statistics for July 2012 were 1,921 visits from 1,435 unique visitors in 87 countries; they viewed 4,096 pages with an average duration of 2:57 minutes per page. Lucy Fisher now maintains a blog on behalf of SRI‐Rice that calls attention to certain new events, reports, issues and opportunities on a monthly basis (http://srinewsandviews.blogspot.com/). This serves (better) the function of the earlier updates sent out by email to a list‐serve every few months.For the 2011‐12 program year, the SRI‐Rice website had 26,818 unique visitors (not counting Cornell use), with 123,276 pageviews:23% from the U.S., 17% from India, 5% from Indonesia, with the rest from over 100 other countries. New visitors to the site were 65% of the total traffic, and the average user visited 3.03 pages and spent 4.23 minutes on the website.
From the outset, CIIFAD and SRI‐Rice defined their role as being facilitative rather than controlling, so partner NGOs, networks and other institutions have been encouraged to establish their own websites and list‐serves. There has been a considerable spread of such ICT entities, starting with the SRI website established by WASSAN, the Watershed Support Services and Activities Network in Hyderabad, India. It serves that whole country and beyond (http://wassan.org/sri/Useful_Links.htm).
This has been supplemented by a SRI‐India website, initiated by a joint WWF‐ICRISAT project in 2006 (http://www.sri‐india.net/). Its e‐group has488 members all across India and has had over 5,000 on‐line discussions since 2007.An additional website is now supported by the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT) and
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managed by Livolink Foundation (http://sdtt‐sri.org/about‐us). There is cooperation among these ICTs and with SRI‐Rice. That India is the country where SRI use has spread most rapidly and widely, to almost every state, is due in large measure to the connectivity for spread of ideas that these networks have fostered.
7.2 Websites, Blogs and Internet Groups
A number of national programs or groupings of stakeholders have established their own SRI presence on the internet, thereby amplifying and multiplying the effects of the basic email and website facilities discussed above. SRI‐Rice facilitates communication among them, and all devote some of their time and space to sharing information that is received from SRI colleagues in other countries. The country focuses make the information particularly relevant to persons working within the respective countries, but the work on SRI proceeds in an information‐enriched national environment.
• CAMBODIA: An SRI Secretariat based in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, with support from GTZ and Oxfam America established a website in 2006 and maintained it for three years, but this is no longer active. This underscores that websites are not self‐maintaining.
• INDIA: A multi‐institutional 'learning alliance' that was set up in Orissa State in 2007 created its own website‐blog: http://sri‐learning‐alliance.blogspot.com/; however, this has not remained current. There is an active Google group maintained by the National Consortium for SRI (NCS) with an informal network known as Jai‐SRI: https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!forum/jaisri.
• INDONESIA: The Indonesian Association for SRI (Ina‐SRI) has been very successful and active with its Yahoo group and website: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Ina‐SRI/which has one of the largest volumes of weekly, even daily communication, mostly in Bahasa Indonesia. Ina‐SRI was established in 2008 and has 513 members across the whole country.
• JAPAN: The Japan Association for SRI (J‐SRI) has an active website for communicating about meetings and research: http://www.iai.ga.a.u‐tokyo.ac.jp/j‐sri/index‐e.html.
• MADAGASCAR: The NGO which first began promoting SRI, Association TefySaina, maintains an SRI website with assistance from the Rotary Club in Lille, France: http://www.tefysaina.org/, while a national SRI secretariat, Groupement‐SRI Madagascar, with assistance from Jim Carrey's Better U Foundation, has a website maintained in three languages: http://groupementsrimada.org/ and also a blog: http://groupementsri.over‐blog.com/ with social networking functions.
• MALAYSIA: SRI got a later start in this country than many others; however,ICTshave supported relatively rapid acceleration in understanding and acceptance of SRI within Malaysia. One blog is operated on behalf of the national SRI‐Padi network (http://sripadiukm.blogspot.com/) by Dr. Anizan Isahak at the national university (UKM), while in Selangor State,a former state director of agriculture Ms. Noorazimah Taharim maintains an excellent blogat http://pertanianselangor.wordpress.com/.
• MALI: A blog documenting the first village‐level trials/demonstrations of SRI in the Timbuktu region under auspices of Africare was helpful for persons interested in SRI anywhere in Mali as well as in other countries:http://www.erikastyger.com/SRI_Timbuktu_Blog/SRI_Timbuktu_Blog.html
• NEPAL: One of the first Yahoo groups was http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sri‐nepal/ founded in 2003 and managed by a German NGO worker, Andreas Jenny, to supportthe 63 members, both individuals and organizations, who have joined.
• PHILIPPINES: Another active Yahoo group is maintained by theSRI‐Pilipinas network: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SRI‐Pilipinas/. Established in 2002, it has 180 members who are kept informed on SRI developments by the network's coordinator, Robert Verzola.
• VIETNAM: One of the most developed SRI websites is maintained by the local NGO SRD (Sustainable Rural Development) with assistance from the international NGO Oxfam American, on behalf of a national SRI coordinating group: http://vietnamsri.wordpress.com/
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• WORLD BANK:The World Bank Institute has prepared and posted on the internet a multimedia kit on SRI with two videos, one on the methodology itself and its effectiveness, and the other a presentation that can be used for training: http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/245848/index.htmlThis is supplemented by information on the website for the World Bank's South Asia program: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/0,,contentMDK:21789689~pagePK:2865106~piPK:2865128~theSitePK:223547,00.html
As noted above, the ideas and methods of SRI are being extrapolated to improve the production of other crops such as wheat, finger millet and mustard. The most organized effort for extension of the new methods is for sugarcane, given focus and impetus in India by a joint project of WWF and ICRISAT with a manual published in 2009. In 2011, a pro‐bono company was established in 2009, AgSRI, based in Hyderabad, which now maintains an active website for SSI, the Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative, building upon SRI experience: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/SSI‐India
7.3 Social Media
Complementing the more 'standard' kinds of ICT media – website, email, blogs, and internet groups – are a number of social media facilities that SRI‐Rice is now using.
Twitter (https://twitter.com/SRIRice): There are 179 followers on this medium, with 122 tweets in July, the last month for which we have a tally. Among recent followers are ACIAR,Africa Daily, Africa Science News, the Borlaug Institute, CGIAR Consortium, FAO Media Center, Farmer Entrepreneurs, ICT4Ag, IRRI, Natural Resources Institute, Monsanto, NGO World, and USAID/Haiti.
Facebook(https://www.facebook.com/SRIRice): During 2011‐12, this facility had an average weekly reach of 750 Facebook users, and at any one time, about 15 people share in SRI‐Rice's posts. There are 314 page 'likes.' Facebook users tend to favor multimedia posts over written material in our experience.
LinkedIn(http://www.linkedin.com/groups/SRI‐International‐Network‐Resources‐Center‐3928316): The website also maintains this communication‐exchange service.
7.4 ResearchSupport
SRI‐Rice's research network site, which has not yet been formally opened,already has392 research papers posted on the network's site (http://www.mendeley.com/groups/1178631/system‐of‐rice‐intensification‐research‐network).Sixteen researcher‐members have already signed up to participate.The Mendeley software program being used is one of many bibliographic reference management softward options, ResearchGate being another example. Mendeley was chosen because of the added option of being able to conducton‐line discussions, similar to Facebook, but for scientists. SRI‐Rice's networking facility will help researchers easily find studies on SRI that have already been completed, and it can be kept them abreast of new articles as soon as they get published. The network itself will also facilitate discussions on research agendas, priorities, and methodologies across countries, many disciplines, and different statuses.
7.5 Video Communication
The precept that 'a picture is worth one thousand words' comes from an era long before ICT was even dreamed about. One of the most powerful aids for SRI dissemination has been the ease with which NGOs, government agencies, researchers, also farmers can prepare video presentations on their SRI experience, achievements, problems, and innovation to be uploaded on YouTube for anyone to view.
Ten years ago, when SRI extension began to gain momentum, training in the new methods was supported by CD‐ROM videos such as were produced by the NGO ADRA in Indonesia, with the support of a famous pop singer, Maya Rumantir (http://agroecologic.com/sriagroecology/srivideo.html). Since
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then, hundreds ofon‐line videos, most short but some long, have been made and posted on YouTube from more than a dozen countries and in many languages. Their visual content means that useful information, or sometimes just inspiration, can be conveyed to others even without their understanding the words spoken or printed. In India, an NGO Digital Green has worked with NGOs and with farmers to produce grassroots‐based videos such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yHHRworSgU.
There are in addition to professional productions, many videos have been made and uploaded by farmers onto YouTube creating a more diverse set of offerings, available to farmers all around the world.Current playlists (http://www.youtube.com/user/sricornell/videos?view=1) show 750 video postings (with some duplication) with listings on subjects like Farmer Experiences (31), Motorized Equipment (36), Principles and Instructions (69), and Organic Methods (10). It is difficult to assess the impact of these video postings, but YouTube has become a powerful medium for SRI spread,for example, the video made by a small British video firm(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbU7_i9vW_w)showing farmer‐to‐farmer extension of SRI from Madagascar to Rwanda to Burundi with facilitation by IFAD.
Supplementing the many videos is a photo gallery (http://sri.ciifad.cornell.edu/photogallery/index.html) posted by SRI‐Rice with pictures from 27 countries, from Afghanistan to Zambia, and from 13 states of India. These are available for training, expositional and other purposes. One of the indications of the international nature of the SRI network is the number of times that pictures from one country get used in training manuals or presentations developed for another country. All of the materials in the SRI collection are put into the public domain, with free use not only permitted but encouraged.
Additionally, 341 powerpoint presentations on SRIhave been uploaded on the web throughSlideShare (http://www.slideshare.net/SRI.CORNELL/presentations). The pictures, graphs, tables, data and analyses in these powerpoints are available to anyone within the international SRI network (and to anyone else) for use in other presentations. About one‐quarter of the PPTs posted have originated fromSRI‐Rice, butmost are fromover 30 countries around the world, including from 10 states of India. The powerpoints are mostly focused on rice;however, seven other crops are included in addition to rice, from black gram to wheat, as SRI ideas and methods are being extended to other agricultural production activities.
7.6 'Hybridization' of ICT Strategies: Some of the best uses of the new media are their combination, including also mixing them with older means of communication. SRI‐Pilipinas, the SRI network in the Philippines, regularly places notices on SRI in the newspaper, giving farmers contact information for further information. The network's manager gets dozens or hundreds of text messages in response, which he can follow up with information on training, on‐line videos, manuals, etc. He can also by texting communicate easily and quickly with farmers who have joined the SRI‐Pilipinasnetwork; they in turn can seek information for dealing with problems such as certain crop pests. The camera feature of mobile phones enables farmers to provide visual information for getting diagnoses and recommendations from other farmers or from IPM specialists. Farmers and others are getting better at integrating across ICT media. Agencies seeking to use ICT should welcome and provide for this rather than privilege one medium over others.
SRI‐Rice has found that the different interactive social media link it with different audiences: Mendeleyconnects the secretariat with researchers around the world;LinkedIn enables discussions among development professionals;Facebookconnects with the wider public through networks of friends, while Twitter followers consist of organizations as well as individuals who want to keep current with what SRI‐Rice is thinking and doing without having to invest much time in a full website visit. There are not yet many actual farmers interacting with SRI‐Rice on these media except for Facebook. However, farmers do already find the SRI‐Rice blog and website and do get information from it, especially the instructional videos and extension manuals. Within the next five years, the level and pattern of farmer
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engagement with social media and with ICTs in general will surely evolve differently from where it is today.
8.0 Conclusions: Opportunities and Limitations for Farmer Empowerment
The development and impact of ICTs are still 'a work in progress.' No firm or final conclusions can be drawn at this point, but some conclusions can be formulated for consideration based on experience with their use to empower farmers through the spread of knowledge about the System of Rice Intensification and derived agroecological methods to raise incomes, improve food security, and buffer climate‐change effects.
8.1 Farmers are becoming more versed in ICT use than previously thought. Literacy is important for ICTs as for previous forms of communication, but the facility that electronic technologies give for transmission of images (pictures, figures, etc.) is helpful for farmers across the board. But also, not every farmer needs to be literate to benefit from the new technologies. The younger generation of farmers is mostly literate, and eager to utilize them. The picture in Figure 1 was sent to the author by email from a young farmer in Tamil Nadu state of India, Moghanraj Yadav, who wanted to show the use that he was making of SRI knowledge downloaded from the SRI website. This farmer has since established his own NGO (VAANGHAI) to promote agroecologicalpractices within his district and beyond (http://www.hindu.com/2008/06/03/stories/2008060350760300.htm). The stereotype of 'farmers' that hasshaped (and misshaped) many development efforts and prescriptions in the past (and present) needs to be revised, and to be continually adjusted to keep pace with the effects of universal education programs and the lowering of costs of laptops, cellphones and other ICT instruments.
8.2 The economics of ICT are becoming more and more favorable. As just noted, farmers' costs of participation in ICT have been coming down, in many places rapidly. There is still reason to be concerned about 'the digital divide' ‐‐ it will be a long time before ICT access becomes universal. But in rural areas it is not necessary that everyone have direct access to ICT for this to have positive impacts. Younger, more educated, more ambitious members of rural communities who can establish access can introduce innovations that then get used more broadly. Farmer organizations or women's groups can amplify and spread the knowledge that their leaders and/or their most electronically‐versed members gain.
8.3 Mobile phones are currently and prospectively the most widely used ICT among farmers. The decreasing prices for mobile phone are making these a rapidly spreading phenomenon, although user charges vary considerably and are in many places a brake on the spread. From farmers' perspective, this means of communication is one that they can control more readily than others, and they can use it when and as they find it beneficial. This contrasts with the mediocre phone service via landlines in most rural areas. Many farmers, if not all, are picking up on various applications and are becoming well‐versed with their mobiles for meeting diverse information and communication needs.
8.4 ICT is basically an impersonal medium, with its sustained effectiveness depending on tailoring and personal engagement. Information that is available to everyone and anyone having access to the internet or to phone networks or community ICT centers is impersonal and untailored. There are huge efforts going on to counter this essential characteristic, with some success. This is the goal of most of the social media. But the potency of list‐serves and on‐line discussion groups has time and again been seen to depend on some personal element, particular to have acute and dedicated persons managing or moderating electronic networks with a personal touch and with much knowledgeof other participants and of the issues of interest to them. Good ICT results will not come simply from having technological opportunities.Appropriate, active and sympathetic management of communication flows is critical for achieving desired impacts and for sustaining others' engagement.
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8.5 The volume of ICT communications is becoming overwhelming, with intense competition for attention. ICT purveyors are engaged in something like an arms race, with people's attention being fought over. People necessarily develop defenses to fend off demands on their time, and maybe other resources; and others who want to reach these people attempt ever‐more innovative, often outrageous, methods to attract attention. It is possible that at some time in the future, there will be so much 'overload' that the effectiveness of ICT channels will diminish because of the volume, even with more inventive search engines and screenings. It will be surprising if ICT manages to indefinitely defy the laws of diminishing returns.
8.6 ICT can become a time‐sink at both ends of the communication nexus, for 'senders' and 'receivers.'There will be an increasing need to allocate time and resources to maintain currency in messages and postings, and to eliminate dated or outmoded material. The on‐line culture values speed and newness to a high degree, which will make efforts to continually cull and update material all the more essential.
8.7 The admonition that 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing' is becoming more relevant.The internet is full of unvetted, misleading, and often incorrect information. There are many benefits from having knowledge flows less controlled by 'gatekeepers' who can impede the emergence of new ideas and techniques and the criticism of established beliefs.However, institutions working with ICT urgently needto find ways to improve the reliability andveracityof the huge amounts of information and communication that can now betransmitted widely at instant speed. What economists call Gresham's law(bad money drives out good money) has an ICT version: bad information drives out good information. If people have unfortunate experiences based on faulty information, the bloom can wear off ICT over time. Once bitten, twice shy could become another relevant adage.
8.8 Anadvantage of ICT is the addition of images (pictures, videos) to our stock of information, but these need to be used well. Academic preferences have privileged numbers over words, and words over images. Quantitative information 'trumps' qualitative information, and the latter is more respected than pictures, drawings, etc. Yet we understand relationships much better with visual representations than with either words or numbers. To make words more powerful, we invoke metaphors and analogies; to give numbers more tangibility and impact, we utilize graphs or diagrams. In evolutionary biology, the capacity for vision preceded by many eons the knowledge and use of words and then of numbers.But knowing how representative certain images are is very difficult. The fact that images have emotional power makes their ethical and objective use all the more important.
8.9 With ICT more than other communication processes, there is need to keep in mind one's objective.The technologies involved in ICT are often complex and absorbing. It is easy to get caught up in 'the bells and whistles' of ICT, and many of the claims made for ICT effectiveness are not yet objectively validated. ICT has proceded more on the basis of plausibility than of evidence. In the SRI case, we have tried to keep a mental fix on what will, or can reasonably be expected to, contribute to improved farmers' practices and to greater benefits, of many kinds, for rural households and communities. There is a temptation to emphasize the speed or splendor of communication over its reliability or worth.
8.10 ICT involves more than setting up village kiosks and distributing all the hardware that goes with it. If ICT is going to contribute to empowerment of farmers, there needs to be a philosophy of participation and democratization undergirding the expansion and operation of the different media. ICT could be maintained in ways that enhance hierarchy and create more complex power dynamics. On‐line networks can remain more one‐way than multi‐dimensional. Paradoxically, skillful moderating that focuses communication on problem identification and problem solving, and that keeps discussions from being monopolized, can enlarge participation and make it more empowering for farmers by being more inclusive and more effective. Farmers have many demands on their time, and efficacy is one of the key
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factors in empowerment. Curiosity and desire to learn new things exists within the farming community, but these admirable qualities are not sufficient to make ICT participation durable and rewarding.
The ECOSOC goal of empowerment, for farmers and for people in all walks of life, is a difficult one to achieve, and to know when it is being achieved or even that progress is being made. Accordingly, there needs to be continuous monitoring and evaluation, self‐criticism, and assessments by the people whose empowerment is intended. As noted at the outset of the paper, ICT is never an end in itself, but rather always a means toward other values and outcomes. It is a new and exciting set of means for communication, changing people's knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs. However, it is still being vetted as it evolves (rapidly). ICT should be evaluated from many disciplinary perspectives, and especially by laypersons rather than primarily by the specialists. There are significant possibilities for ICT to make our economies and societies as well as our political systems more equitable and responsive. But these potentials will not be realized because of the nature of the technology itself, but only through positive influences of institutions and culture as well as favorable policies and leadership.
Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Dr. C. Shambu Prasad, Xavier Institute of Management in Bhubaneswar, for information on the Indian ICT setup; and Ms. Lucy Fisher, Director of Communications for the SRI International Network and Resources Center (SRI‐Rice), Cornell University, USA, for her suggestions and inputs on this paper and for giving leadership for SRI‐Rice on making good use of ICTs as they emerge.
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Figure 1: Picture sent to the author by Indian farmer, Moghanraj Yadav, Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu state, by email to show the results of his use of SRI methodology. This is indicative of how
farmers, especially young farmers, are becoming adept and confident in their use of ICT.
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ANNEX: SRI‐Rice ICT Activity in July 2012 To give some concreteness to how ICTs are being used in the effort to empower farmers through new knowledge for raising the productivity of their land, labor, seeds, capital and water, below is given some more detailed information on what was summarized in section 7.0. This annex presents specific activities or listings by SRI‐Rice in the month of July as examples of the content of its ICT activity. Website pages revised or added to: Several country pages: Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cuba, Philippines, Sierra Leone; Other Crop pages updated for finger millet (SFMI) and sugarcane (SSI); specific page improvements on: the home page, 2012 New Resources, India press items, India research publications, journal articles, videos (numerous video links added from Digital Green and several playlists), India videos, photo gallery, theses, Spanish language documents, and Featured Items,among others. July feature article on the website: 'Prestigious Awards Go to System of Rice Intensification (SRI) Proponents in Cambodia and India' (http://sri.ciifad.cornell.edu/news/featured07.html). Since press reports on a First West Africa Workshop on SRI, held in Ouagadougou at the end of July, co‐organized by SRI‐Rice with World Bank‐ and USAID‐funded projects on rice development in the West African region and with Oxfam America, did not come out until August,this event gets featured in the August report. Highlights from July 2012 web activity [featured on website to call attention to them]: • Awards: Yang Saing Koma from CEDAC in Cambodia won the Ramon Magsaysay Award and several
from Bihar received recognitionfrom Indian government for SRI activities • In the Press: SRI extension made progress in the Indian states of Goa in the west and Mizoram and
Nagaland in the northeast; in addition to Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, which are better covered in the press on a month‐to‐month basis.
• Research Published:From India, research findings on water management and productivity, weed management, spacing, phyllochrons, and methane generation; from Kenyaan interesting article on water and land productivity (see Research section below). Anumber of research articles, published previously but only recently found, were added to the SRI‐Rice research data base.
• New Book:A 216‐page book on SRI in India,authored by T.M. Thiyagarajan and Biksham Gujja, is now posted on the AgSRI website: SRI: Transforming Rice Production with SRI Knowledge and Practice. [Publication of the National Consortium of SRI (NCS) and AgSRI]
In the press – July 2012 [cited so that others will know about them and have easy access]
• CEDAC's president Dr. Yang Saing Koma has been selected for the 2012 Ramon Magsaysay award July 26, 2012, KI‐Media (Cambodia)
• Six organic farming groups in Ganjam get a fillip [Six organic groups certified under Participatory Guarantee Scheme (PGS)]July 25, 2012, The Hindu (Orissa, India)
• Laser leveller for minimising water need [improves results with SRI practice when water is reduced] July 25, 2012, The Hindu (Tamil Nadu, India)
• Farmers asked to switch over to SRI cultivationJuly 25, 2012, The Hindu (Andhra Pradesh, India) • Rice intensification training held at KohimaJuly 23, 2012, Echo of Arunachal (Nagaland, India)
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• Paddy plantation begins in rain‐fed Gumla districtJuly 22, 2012, Times of India (Bihar, India) • System of rice intensification technique to kickstart with fields in Quepem [10 ha target for SRI
in Quepemtaluka]July 17, 2012, The Times of India (Goa, India) • Mizoram introduces System of Rice Intensification [Similar articles in Morurng Express, July 13;
The Northeast Today, July 14; and Mizoram News (Mizoram, India), July 14] • System of Rice Intensification Hmangabuh chinJuly 13, 2012, Directorate of Information & Public
Relation ‐ Govt. of Mizoram (Mizoram, India) • Ryots to be provided 50 p.c. subsidy on drum seedersJuly 8, 2012, The Hindu (AP, India) • Rice intensification method to be tried in Canacona [Already tried in Sanguem, Mapusa and
Valpoi] July 1, 2012, Navhind Times (Goa, India)
Latest Research / Journal Articles / Theses [postings in July]
• Roy, S. and P.S. Bisht. 2012. System of Rice Intensification: A possible way to sustainable rice production. International Journal of Agriculture, Environment and Biotechnology 5(2): 177‐184. [acquired 7/31/12]
• Veeramani, P., R.D. Singh, and K. Subrahmaniyan. 2012. Study of phyllochron: System of Rice Intensification (SRI) technique. Agricultural Science Research Journal 2(6): 329‐334. [acquired 7/31/12]
• Nyamai, M., B.M. Mati, P. G. Home, B. Odongo, R. Wanjogu, and E. G. Thuranira. 2012. Improving land and water productivity in basin rice cultivation in Kenya through System of Rice Intensification (SRI). Agricultural Engineering International: CIGR Journal 14(2): 1‐9. [acquired 7/31/12]
• Singh, N., D. Kumar, O.V S. Thenua, and V. Tyagi. 2012.Influence of spacing and weed management on rice (Oryza sativa) varieties under System of Rice Intensification. Indian Journal of Agronomy 57(2): 138‐142. [acquired 7/31/12]
• Suryavanshi, Priyanka, Y.V. Singh, R. Prasanna, A. Bhatia, and Y.S. Shivay. 2012. Pattern of methane emission and water productivity under different methods of rice crop establishment. Paddy and Water Environment (Online First, 12 April 2012). doi:10.1007/s10333‐012‐0323‐5
• Veeramani, P., R. Durai Singh, and K. Subrahmaniyan. 2012. Studies on different planting pattern (using rolling marker) in System of Rice Intensification (SRI) through hybrid rice CORH 3. International Journal of Research in Chemistry and Environment 2(1): 58‐61. [acquired 7/11/12]
New Links from SRI‐RiceWebsite to Online Publications
• Thiyagarajan, T. M., and Biksham Gujja. 2012. SRI ‐ Transforming Rice Production with SRI (System of Rice Intensification) Knowledge and Practice. AgSRI website. (216pp, 10.26MB) [publication by AgSRI and the Indian National Consortium of SRI (NCS)] [acquired 7/31/12]
• Uphoff, Norman. 2012. System of Rice Intensification ‐ A pro‐poor option for food security. News Reach 12(4): 8‐22. [Interview by B.C. Barah with N. Uphoff; News Reach is bimonthly magazine on livelihoods and development of the NGO PRADAN based in New Delhi] [acquired 7/25/12]
• Koma, Yang Saing. 2011. Building experiences with SRI development and dissemination in Cambodia (2000–2010). In Agroecology and Advocacy: Innovations in Asia, 3‐11. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy website. [Link acquired 7/25/12] [This publication was produced by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and the Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development]
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Photo Gallery (July additions)
• New photo album on Cuba's Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative (SSI, or SiCAS in Spanish)[uploaded 7/12]
• Photos added to the folders for Benin:https://picasaweb.google.com/sri.cornell/Benin# , and Burkina Faso:https://picasaweb.google.com/sri.cornell/BurkinaFasoBF#
Slide Presentations [posted on SlideShare in July]
• Pérez, Rena. 2012.Sistema de Caña de AzúcarSostenible. System of Rice Intensification website. 12 slides. 3.45MB. PDF of a PowerPoint presentation on the "Sustainable Sugarcane System (Sistema de Caña de AzúcarSostenible; SiCAS in Spanish) for use in Cuba[acquired 7/29/12]
• PRADAN. 2011. System of Wheat Intensification manual (in Hindi). PowerPoint presentation on SWI methods in Bihar state of India. 20 slides. [acquired 7/27/12]
• System of rice intensification in Manipur, India. PowerPoint presentation by GaikhangjangGangmei of theRongmei Naga Baptist Association, Development and Relief Department (RNBA/RRC),Manipur, India. 13 slides [acquired 7/10/12]
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