1. CASE STUDY: Presented at the 6th
Africa Agriculture Science Week, 15th
– 20th
July, 2013 - Accra, Ghana
CASE STUDY:
IMPROVING ACCESS AND APPLICATION OF INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE FOR
AGRICULTURE BY TRANSFORMING TELECENTRES INTO AGRICULTURAL KNOWLEDGE HUBS
Author: Wandila Simon
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This paper discusses the pivotal role which telecentres play in enabling access to and application
of information and knowledge for small holder farmers in Southern Africa, and how they can be
transformed to enable access to relevant, dynamic and authentic information and knowledge for
improved, sustainable agricultural growth, when they operate as agricultural knowledge hubs. It
brings to light the importance of ICT strategies in agriculture for the purpose of strengthening
capacities of institutions and improve on practices for enhanced agricultural extension and
marketing services delivery. The paper also elaborates the power of public private partnerships
in strengthening linkages among various stakeholders in agriculture and how through this, they
can work together to improve access and application of information and knowledge for food
security and income.
This case study is based on the author’s encounter and lessons learnt during about four years
(2009- 2013) of involvement in capacity building, information and knowledge management for
telecentres and related initiatives as well as telecentre managers in Zambia and Southern Africa
at large. The information was gathered through information obtained from online knowledge
sharing platforms, during workshops and study tours.
Improving agricultural productivity, profitability, and sustainability in Southern Africa, like
elsewhere, depends on the ability of farmers to adopt change and innovate in their use of
technologies, management systems, organizational arrangements, and environmental resources.
Expanding the people’s capacity to innovate depends on their access to knowledge and
information services, and their capability to understand and apply that knowledge, translating it
into increased production, and improved income and food security. It is imperative that
agricultural research forms an integral component of agricultural development. Indispensably,
the results of agricultural research together with other resources such as market, micro-finance
and weather information among others are the key to the effective and efficient operation of
agricultural activities. There is need for strong linkages among various stakeholders in
agricultural research and development and the farmers who spend most of their day time in the
fields. This, demand for effective and efficient agricultural production and marketing extension
and advisory services, adequate enough to meet the dynamic information and knowledge needs
of the farmers.
However, farmers Farmers in Southern Africa, like elsewhere in Africa and other developing
countries are faced with problems of how to access timely, accurate and up-to-date technical
agricultural information. This is mainly due to, among other reasons, a lack of adequate
frontline agricultural extension officers, poor flow of information to and from farmers, lack of
understanding on the application of agricultural information and knowledge and inadequate
communication between research institutions and extension services.

2. CASE STUDY: Presented at the 6th
Africa Agriculture Science Week, 15th
– 20th
July, 2013 - Accra, Ghana
With the increased use of ICTs such as mobile phones, it is now possible for farmers in rural and
remote areas to be reached by mobile telephone and have access to up-to-date information at
any given time. ICTs have therefore proved to be helpful in improving farmers’ access to
agricultural extension and marketing services. However, there is need to improve access and
application of this information and knowledge so as to increase production, and a result food
security and income.
FINDINGS
Lack of adopted ICT strategy and practice in ministries in charge of agriculture, livestock,
fisheries and forestry:
i. Lack of capacity of farmers and extension officers in the use of modern ways of
communication and information dissemination (ICTs)
ii. Lack of access to adequate ICT tools and services by farmers, extension enterprises and
extension service officers
While National ICT policies have been developed and adopted in various countries, there is no
effective provision for ICTs in agriculture. Some countries in Southern Africa are implementing
ICT in agriculture projects, yet ministries in charge of agriculture do not have adopted ICT
strategies or ICT strategies are not integrated into national agriculture policies.
Zambia: With the growing demand for technical information generation and dissemination by
farmers, and rapid changes in technology, the ministry of agriculture has in recent years been
designing programmes meant to use ICTs in service delivery. Among the notable ones include
agricultural information centres, internet based question and answer SMS services, and
digitization.
Mozambique: The Ministério da Agricultura (MINAG) as of April, 2005 did not have an ICT
strategy in place, although the interest to develop was there. The Centro de Documentação
Agrária e Informação do Sector Agrária (CDA) at MINAG is the department where web
development is being spearheaded. The production of quality content is a concern for CDA
management, as the creation of materials suitable for release on the web demands staff
capabilities that have yet to be developed. In fact, judging from the date of release of official
documents, release onto the website is slow. Between June 2004 and April 2005, the site was
not updated. (CTA, 2005)
Similar situations were discovered in Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana and Malawi where there are
no ICT strategies in the ministry of agriculture, and websites meant to provide agricultural
information are simple static sites. They are not frequently updated and therefore lack
usefulness. However, due to lack of a clearly defined and adopted ICT strategy in agriculture to
provide a framework for integration of ICT in the sector, various challenges have led to most of
these projects not achieving the desired results. Other challenges include lack of ICT skills among
extension and advisory services departments and lack of appropriate ICTs. For instance, there
are situations where senior members of staff do not have competent computer skills and are not
able to utilise the use of computers in the agricultural information centres pilot project.
With an inclusively designed and adopted ICT strategy, an effective framework of integrating ICT
into agriculture can be arrived at.

3. CASE STUDY: Presented at the 6th
Africa Agriculture Science Week, 15th
– 20th
July, 2013 - Accra, Ghana
The absence of effective Public Private Partnerships in linking ICTs to agricultural
development:
Public Private Partnerships enables the pull of resources from different institutions and put
together efforts collaboratively. Agricultural researchers, national extension and advisory
services and local extension entrepreneurs, farmer groups and telecentre networks, all have the
opportunity to explore collaboration if they have to thrive. Supporting each other through well-
structured and modelled partnerships can improve service delivery, sustainability and impact.
None of the partners can work in isolation and expect to create impact.
In Southern Africa, various telecentres exist and a good number of them belong to the national
Telecentre Networks, a platform for knowledge sharing for the development of telecentres in
each country. Efforts have been and still being made by the Southern Telecentre Network
(SATNET) to build the capacity of national telecentre networks and telecentre operators,
facilitate advocacy for the integration of ICT in agriculture, network building and strengthening
and information and knowledge sharing. However, very few partnerships exist with other
potential institutions which not necessarily in the ICT sector. Efforts to create strong linkages
and formulate partnerships with other sectors such as agriculture, still remains hard battles to
be fought. This results into limited operations, growth, sustainability and impact of telecentres,
when in the actual sense; they provide so many opportunities for such sectors like agriculture to
thrive. Paying a courtesy call to the SADC ICT for development (ICT4D) programme team in 2011,
SATNET was urged to develop a telecentre business model for Southern Africa, with a main focus
sector, upon which relevant public and private sectors and institutions would be called to
participate to formulate strong public private partnership for the full utilisation of the potential
of telecentres.
Learning from the deployment of telecentres in Botswana during a study tour in 2011 facilitated
SATNET and hosted by Botswana Postal Services, it was learnt that public private partnership
was the great force behind the popular Kitsong Centres and Nteletsa telecentres, a country wide
deployment of telecentres in the rural areas of Botswana. Different telecommunication
companies, private and public have joined hands in sponsoring the establishment of these
centres. However, more stakeholders are needed to come on board so as to improve on content
generation to meet the agriculture information and knowledge needs of the rural population
who mainly depend on agriculture and livestock. This is due to the fact that, local residents do
not frequent the telecentres because they cannot find the information and content they need,
hence not utilising the telecentres.
Lack of adequate frontline agricultural extension officers:
 In Zambia, the extension-information provision has been done through person-to-person
(farmer-extension officer) contact and mass media. However, these officers are few on
the ground, over-stretched and often de-motivated. It is currently estimated that there is
an average of one officer to 1,000 farmers.
DISCUSSION
Lack of ICT strategies in ministries of agriculture and the absence or ineffectiveness of public
private partnerships are the major problems identified. However, alternative interventions
would include:

4. CASE STUDY: Presented at the 6th
Africa Agriculture Science Week, 15th
– 20th
July, 2013 - Accra, Ghana
- Conducting comprehensive research to understand the information, knowledge and
communication needs of government extension service providers, private extension
enterprises, farmers and telecentres across the agricultural value chain.
- Establishing and strengthening public private partnerships involving different
stakeholders such as telecommunication companies, entrepreneurs’ associations,
government line ministries and departments, local and regional public and private
agricultural research institutions, farmer associations, community development agents,
local communities, telecentre networks, and government and private agricultural
extension service providers.
- Develop an agricultural information and knowledge content management model for
telecentres where various key projects and organisations such as African Forum for
Agricultural Advisory Service, Regional Agricultural Information and Learning System,
Dissemination of News Agricultural Technologies in Africa, FARA, CTA, local private and
public agricultural research and extension services and other related institutions
participate in content development and capacity building for telecentres.
A Telecentre is a public place where people can access computers, the Internet, and other digital
technologies that enable them to gather information, create, learn, and communicate with
others while they develop essential digital skills. (Telecentre.org)
Like in many parts of the World especially in developing countries, there are various telecentres
initiatives in Southern Africa, funded or operated by various stakeholders such NGOs,
government, social entrepreneurs. Equally, national and regional telecentre networks operate in
Southern Africa. Telecentre have been points of public and shared access to ICTs for
communities such as farmers who cannot afford access through ordinary means.
Through their knowledge management initiatives, telecentres distribute information to farmers
in agricultural extension and marketing service, especially on emerging new methods in
agricultural practise, new input methods, weather, crop prices and other extension services.
Being within the community with a local touch, telecentres are a great avenue to inform farmers
through multimedia content, trainings, and farm demonstrations with the assistance of
agricultural extension officers. Telecentres also stock library of repackaged agricultural
information on CDs in different formats such as video, audio, text and image content and offer
access to the internet as a way of sharing knowledge with farmers. Telecentres also offer
meeting space and point for exchange of knowledge and ideas.
CONCLUSION
However, access to ICTs as well as the usability of the content accessed through ICTs plays a
great role in their effective use in this regard. Mobile phones may only be able to access limited
type of content which may not meet the information needs of farmers and on the other hand
may restrict the extension service providers in their efforts to provide adequate content, and
ensure it is understood and applied accurately by the farmers. Literacy levels also pose a great
challenge in communication through SMS as many rural farmers especially the vulnerable rural
women have not attained the minimum reading and writing skills. This makes it imperative to
integrate a range of ICT tools such as computers in the preparation and delivery of agricultural
information and knowledge, and in the same way be used by farmers to access that information
and knowledge. In cases where there is shared access to computers and other ICT tools within
the community through set ups such as telecentre initiatives, farmers have found these

5. CASE STUDY: Presented at the 6th
Africa Agriculture Science Week, 15th
– 20th
July, 2013 - Accra, Ghana
resources to be very helpful. They benefit more than those who only rely on limited capacity ICT
tools such as mobile phones. The level of understanding of the agricultural information and
knowledge they acquire and as a result its application differs. In the midst of this privilege, many
farmers even after having access to these shared access ICT centres, still finds the centres to be
underutilised, as they lack adequate content to provide them with the necessary agricultural
information and knowledge. In most cases this is due to lack of capacity by such telecentres to
generate the required information and knowledge on agriculture, the absence of linkages
between these telecentres and agricultural extension and marketing services as well as
uncoordinated and not well supported telecentre networks.
Therefore, building strong public private partnerships and capacity building that facilitates
establishment and capacity of telecentres and their operators, while creating linkages with
agriculture extension and marketing services is an intervention that can help Africa feed itself by
improving information and knowledge sharing for food security.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- The PPPs should collaboratively build a business model which equips the telecentre with
appropriate ICTs, build the capacity of telecentre staff, generate local content, with
operating guidelines to create a strong relationship and collaboration with the involved
stakeholders. Some of the core components of the operating guidelines would be to
incorporate ICTs that breaks literacy barriers such as interactive voice response, video
and audio content in local languages, on farm testing and demonstrations and periodic
success and failure share and documentation through participatory video.
- Ministries of agriculture should develop and adopt ICT strategies and have them
supported in the budget.
- It is recommended that institutions such the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory
Services (AFAAS), Regional Agricultural Information and Learning System (RAILS),
Dissemination of New Agricultural Technologies in Africa (DONATA) and other related
programmes undertaken by Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and
Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and other institutions,
establish collaborative partnerships with telecentre networks in capacity building and
content development and repackaging with a particular focus on agriculture.
REFERENCE
Simon Wandila (2012). Diversify to Survice; Public Private Partnerships drives the telecentre
agenda in Botswana. ICT Update,( June, 2012), CTA. The Netherlands.
Darlington Kahilu (2012). Application of ICT in the Agriculture Sector in Zambia. National
Agriculture Information Services. Lusaka, Zambia.
Marcel Werner (2005). ICT in Agriculture Extension and Marketing in Malawi and Mozambique.
Research Report. CTA. The Netherlands.
Contacts:
Simon Wandila, Youth Skills for Development, C/O Musenge Tradings Building, Along Lufunsa
Avenue, Chimwemwe Township, Kitwe, Zambia ,
Email: simonwgreg@gmail.com , Fax: 21012573
Phone: +260 961 079013