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Strengthening digital agricultural extension and advisory services in smallholder farming








FAO. 2023. Strengthening digital agricultural extension and advisory services in smallholder farming. Rome.



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    Policy brief
    Empowering smallholder farmers to access digital agricultural extension and advisory services 2021
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    Smallholder farmers face a variety of challenges and capacity gaps in accessing digital agricultural extension and advisory services (AEAS). Recent studies have revealed that smallholder farmers’ low digital literacy, along with insufficient digital human capital development and infrastructure investments in rural areas, has become paramount barriers and constraints for them to access and effectively realize the potential of digital AEAS. Therefore, smallholder farmers need to be empowered by innovative approaches to enable them to access digital AEAS and achieve economic, environmental, and social gains sustainably, thus leaving no one behind in the era of digital technology advancements.
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Guide on digital agricultural extension and advisory services
    Use of smartphone applications by smallholder farmers
    2023
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    Digital agricultural extension and advisory services (AEAS) have a great potential to enhance accessibility, delivery, transparency, scope and impacts of information and services for smallholder farmers. However, this potential is often unfully harnessed and the benefits of digital AEAS unequally distributed due to an evident, widening digital divide between rural and urban areas, gender, and different social groups both within and among regions. Due to low-level e-literacy and digital skills, particularly smallholder farmers in rural areas in developing countries have limited access to and utilization of digital AEAS. Considering the above-mentioned benefits of digital AEAS, their poor uptake by smallholder farmers, and the importance of digital empowerment of smallholder farmers in particular, this guide, targeting smallholder farmers in need of digital AEAS as its principal users, provides a set of tools to enhance their digital skills in terms of basic knowledge and skills on using digital tools, methods of access to digital AEAS, methods of access to e-commerce, and capacity building.
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Indicator framework for national extension and advisory service systems
    Metrics for performance and outcome measurement
    2022
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    Extension and advisory services (EAS) play a key role in facilitating innovation for sustainable agricultural development. To strengthen this role, appropriate investment and conducive policies are needed in EAS, guided by evidence. It is therefore essential to examine EAS characteristics and performance in the context of modern, pluralistic and increasingly digital EAS systems. In response to this need, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has developed guidelines and instruments for the systematic assessment of national EAS systems. The Indicator Framework provides overarching guidance on EAS systems assessment, including a list of 40 indicators (10 core and 30 complementary) which cover all major aspects of EAS from inputs to impact. This Indicator Framework provides much needed structure to EAS assessment, taking into account contemporary, pluralistic services and is complemented by FAO’s instruments for participatory data collection in EAS, including quantitative and qualitative data.

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