NETWORKING WITH FARMERS & FARMERGROUPS

R P SinghAssociate Director Extension

Directorate of Extension Education

How will we feed the world?

a few questions

How will we manage the commons?

How will we allocate the world’s biomass to meet our food, feed, fuel, and fiber needs?

How do we keep market forces from squeezing out small producers?

How do we make public food service

a driver of sustainability and health?

Where do individuals go for help in solving problems?

Co-located colleagues

IntranetNon-electronic

documents

Internalelectronicnetworks

Contacts inother officesFirm

boundaryExternalelectronicnetworks

Internet

Non-electronicdocuments

Othercontacts

Knowledge networking through communities of practiceConnecting people

so that they collaborate, share ideas, and create

knowledge

What are communities of practice?• Groups of people who come together to share and to

learn from one another face-to-face and/or virtually. • They are held together by a common interest in a

body of knowledge and are driven by a desire and need to share problems, experiences, insights, templates, tools, and best practices.

• Members deepen their knowledge by interacting on an ongoing basis.

• This interaction leads to continuous learning and innovation

Communities are the grease in the KM wheel

Creating knowledge

Embeddingknowledge

Disseminating knowledge

Organizing knowledge

C

KM

Two extreme communities of practice

Face-to-face

Virtual

Encourage an open innovation attitude

Not all the smart people work for us. We need to work with smart people inside and outside the

company.

The smart people in our field work for us.

If you create the most and the best ideas in the industry, you will

win.

If you make the best use of internal and external ideas, you

will win.

Closed attitude Open attitude

Chesborough 2003

Agricultural Innovation Value ChainIdea

scientists

AAFC

Innovation

IC

company

Commercialized

CFIA

farmers

Adopted

Food product

HCproducers

retailers

CFIA

Market

consumers

HC

Consumption

Waste

EC

municipalities

Group Dialogue• Dialogue is NOT:

• Discussion, deliberation, negotiation• Committee, team, task or working group• Majority wins, minority dominance,

groupthink• Dialogue IS:

• Free-flowing exchange of ideas among equals

• All ideas are solicited and are considered

• Best ideas rise to the top( Sunstein, 2006)

Network Relationships

Department

Businesses

Governments

People

Practitioners

NGOs

Educators

Agreements, Outputs, Inputs

Network Structure

Types of Informal Agreements

• Group: few participants; elicit knowledge; unstructured; aggregating knowledge (CFIA Modeling Framework Group)

• Communities: many participants; share knowledge; self-directed; common interest (departmental IM community)

• Networks: massive participants; peer production; emergent processes; common ownership (Linux developers)

Is there a place for family farms?

Family Farming•Versus agro-industrial farming•Family has control over resources•Family takes decisions in relation

to the management of the farm•Most of the labour is provided by

the family

The contribution of agriculture to livelihoods is evident from the fact that 70 percent of the world’s poor people, including the poorest of the poor, and 75 percent of the world’s malnourished live in rural areas, where most of them are involved in agriculture.

So what’s wrong?

•Food crisis•Environmental crisis•Climate crisis•Financial crisis

All of them are interlinked…

CRISIS

•Ecological: deforestation, genetic resources disappear, toxic wastes, climate change,Hunger and Poverty:

• Food Production: 175 % increase between 1975 and 200516 % more food per person• 15 % world population undernourished

Financial crisis interlinked

Solution for one; more problems for others?

Technology and science

•Green revolution did NOT improve access to food for poor people; wonder seeds are not pro-poor, don’t take into account the complexity of farming systems•India: poorest 30 % of population (285 million!) no increase in food and nutrient intake during the last 25 years•Environmental problems: erosion, soil intoxification, increase in pests and diseases…

Can family farming feed the world?

•‘You don’t have another choice than promote small-scale agriculture. Those small farmers don’t have another option, there are no jobs in industry or services for them. In the short term you can only strive for more means for small farmers, if not, you will create a massive emigraton from rural areas.‘

• ‘There’s more, small-scale agriculture has 3 big advantages. Firstly there’s more respect for the environment, just because there’s no money for pesticides and chemical fertilizers. That kind of agriculture is more in harmony with the environment and the climate. •Secondly, it is a labour-intensive production, creating a lot of jobs. •And thirdly, it can be a very productive agriculture, on the condition that those farmers have access to the know-how that is needed.

Definition of a Group

A collection of individuals, the members accept a common task, become interdependent in their performance, and interact with one another to promote its accomplishment

Harold H. Kelley and J.W. Thibaut

Various Types of Groups

Formal groups Informal Groups Small groups Large groups Primary groups Secondary groups Coalitions Membership groups Reference groups

Command groups

Task groups

Friendship groups

Interest groups

Stages of Group Development

Challenges

• Legislative• Policy• Regulatory• Financial• Infrastructure• Human resources• Cultural factors• Intellectual

Property

(Neish, 2007)

Road to Success• Support from senior

management• Clear understandable

statement of what you want to do and why

• Good working relationships with corporate and legal enablers

• Willingness to compromise on issues that are not mission critical

• Perseverance and persistence (Neish, 2007)

Capturing ValueBring it inside the organization

Stabilize it; make it work

Conclusions

• Social networks have both promise and peril

• Consider both strengths and weaknesses• Analyze both opportunities and threats

• Is it a tool in search of a problem, or does it solve a recognized problem?

• What will it do (or do better) that we can’t do now (or do well)?

Thanks for your attention…

Can I shed more light on the subject?