Project Abstract

Abstract
Communication plays a crucial role in the agricultural research and innovation process, facilitating the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and technologies among researchers, farmers, policymakers, and other stakeholders. Effective communication is essential for ensuring the successful adoption of innovations, enhancing agricultural productivity, and promoting sustainable practices. In the context of agricultural research and innovation, communication serves multiple purposes, including disseminating research findings, raising awareness about new technologies, facilitating collaboration among different stakeholders, and addressing the challenges faced by the agricultural sector. By fostering dialogue and information-sharing, communication helps bridge the gap between researchers and end-users, ensuring that innovations are relevant, accessible, and responsive to the needs of farmers and other stakeholders. One key aspect of communication in agricultural research and innovation is the need for multi-directional and participatory approaches that involve all relevant stakeholders in the process. This participatory communication approach ensures that the voices and perspectives of farmers, policymakers, extension agents, and other actors are taken into account, leading to more context-specific and sustainable solutions. Furthermore, effective communication strategies in agricultural research and innovation involve leveraging a variety of channels and tools, including traditional media, social media, extension services, farmer field schools, and community radio. These diverse communication platforms help reach different segments of the population, including women, youth, and marginalized groups, and facilitate the dissemination of information in a timely and accessible manner. In addition to disseminating information, communication in agricultural research and innovation also plays a critical role in building trust, fostering partnerships, and promoting behavior change among farmers and other stakeholders. By engaging in two-way communication processes that encourage feedback, collaboration, and co-creation, researchers can better understand the needs and preferences of end-users, leading to more effective and sustainable innovations. Overall, communication is a key enabler of innovation in agriculture, helping to accelerate the adoption of new technologies, practices, and policies that can enhance productivity, resilience, and sustainability in the sector. By promoting dialogue, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing among different actors, effective communication in agricultural research and innovation can contribute to the development of more inclusive, equitable, and resilient food systems.

Project Overview

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.0              Background to the study

In an article on sustainability and technology transfer, Richard Wilk (1995), an American anthropologist, mentioned a file folder of materials that he had accumulated over several years. The file contained 25 separate project proposals, feasibility studies, implementation plans, and project assessments. Submitted over a period of a century, all these studies considered commercializing the production of edible palm oil from a tree native to the Belizean rainforest. In each of these initiatives, imported cracking and rendering technologies developed for use in other tropical palm-oil industries were tried. Despite easy access to dense, high-yield tree stands, all these projects failed, even those with direct government subsidies. Throughout this period, household production of edible oil by indigenous people, using a variety of simple, local technologies, never stopped.

According to Grenier (1998), this story prompts several important questions: Did anyone bother to ask the local people who, how, where, when, and why of their local palm-oil production system? By learning about the local production system, could the proponents have avoided any of these costly failures? If the researchers had established joint ventures with the communities, could development objectives and sustainable-development goals have been served? If participatory technology-development techniques had been tried, could hybrid technologies (a combination of indigenous and foreign inputs) have yielded successful ventures? What would have been the outcome had any of these proponents worked with the indigenous people.