Rural Resource Centres (RRCs) are community-managed centres that offer farmers access to knowledge, quality planting material, interactive learning and linkage to networks among farmers, private sector, NGOs, and government departments. Given the importance of RRCs in delivering agroforestry technologies to farmers and other stakeholders, the Trees for Food Security Project (TFSP) implemented by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and the National Forestry Resources Research Institute (NaFORRI), with funding from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) has established a centre in Mbale District, Eastern Uganda.Building on a previously existing structure of the lead partner NaFORRI, a Rural Resource Centre (RRC) was initiated and completed with funding from the ACIAR, becoming operational in October 2015. On the other hand, NaFORRI have offered technicians to train farmers and nursery attendants to support seedlings production; nursery maintenance, establishment of demonstration plots and long term tree trials on behalf of the local community.ICRAF role covers technical back-stopping on seed and seedlings acquisition and delivery. ICRAF has also posted interns and volunteers at the RRC to work directly with the local communities. The RRC has installed facilities such as, a tree nursery, shaded area (with shade nets), propagators for grafting and budding, seed stands, a resource centre with a training room, three offices and separate store for seeds and equipment.
Tag: information dissemination
Capacity development for sustainable forest management
This paper presents examples of typical capacity development activities in the forest sector, illustrating the variety of initiatives and approaches to capacity development from around the world. The examples are grouped according to five broad areas of application: (a) capacities to manage forests on a sustainable basis; (b) capacities to formulate, implement, and evaluate policies; (c) capacities in forest research and development; (d) capacities in forest education; and (e) capacities for networking, communication, and information exchange. An evaluation of these capacity development initiatives shows that a fundamental paradigm change has taken place over the past 10 to 20 years, particularly with regard to the definition of capacity development, subjects considered important for sustainable forest management, and the concept of partnership in implementing capacity development activities. Based on this analysis, recommendations are made with regard to strategies, partnership, and necessary resources.
An assessment of mobile phone-based dissemination of weather and market information in the Upper West Region of Ghana
Background: The rapid growth of mobile phones in Ghana has opened up the possibility of delivering timely and useful weather and market information to farmers at costs lower than traditional agricultural extension services. In this paper, we assess the usefulness, constraints, and factors likely to influence farmers’ decisions to patronize mobile phone-based weather and market information. Methods: We rely on primary data from 310 farmers in the Upper West Region, an understudied part of Ghana. We subject the data to three types of analysis. First, we model farmers’ decision to patronize mobile phone-based weather and market information by estimating a binary logit model. Second, we use descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing to analyse the level of usefulness of mobile phone-based weather and market information. We disaggregate the analysis by sex, income status, and age group. Finally, we use qualitative analysis to summarize the constraints associated with the utilization of mobile phone-based weather and market information. Results: We find that contact with agricultural extension agents and farmer-to-farmer extension services significantly influences farmers’ decision to patronize mobile phone-based weather and market information. Regardless of sex, income status, and age group, farmers generally rate mobile phone-based weather and market information as very useful. We identify inexact information, complex text messages, information that are too costly to implement, and poor infrastructure as the constraints to the utilization of mobile phone-based weather and market information. Conclusion: In order to improve the utilization of mobile phone-based weather and market information, disseminators of mobile phone-based information such as Esoko should constantly update and provide client-specific information. Improvements in mobile phone networks and related services will enhance the utilization of mobile phone-based weather and market information. © 2017 The Author(s).
Blogging for impact – lessons from the ASB partnership for the tropical forest margins
Why we did it One of the challenges we were facing was fairly low traffic on our webpage, coupled with confusion about when to update news stories and what really counted as news. We also ran an email listserv where we would occasionally post items like new publications, calls for proposals, or stories from the media related to our work. We decided to renew our strategy a little bit after our global steering group suggested that we send out all the emails in one monthly package rather than sporadically. With a new mandate to develop an email newsletter we had to rethink what our website was for and how it would relate to our e-news. We decided to rework the site as a blog to make posting and searching stories more easy. the blog also allows people to make comments and it is easy to see when somebody else has linked to your page – it’s automatically tracked.