Knowledge sharing for rural development: challenges, experiences and methods

Since&nbsp;the &ldquo;Green revolution&rdquo;,&nbsp;global food production has risen dramatically. Yet hunger continues to spread in many parts of the world, particularly in rural areas, and many small farmers now face financial ruin.&nbsp;This book explains how, as a result of this,&nbsp;more and more peasant farmers are seeing ecological agriculture, combining ancestral and new methods, as a sustainable solution. Specifically, the book explores what challenges these farmers face, and how new methods of generating and sharing knowledge can play a role in overcoming them. <br /><br />The book begins wiht an introductory chapter, which&nbsp;describes how agro-industrialisation has lead to both financial losses for small farmers and a progressive loss of ancestral rural knowledge. As part of the resistance to this model, the author describes how an effort has re-emerged to retrieve traditional knowledge and species. It is within this process, the chapter argues, that practices and mechanisms for knowledge creation and exchange can play a key role. <br /><br />The remainder of the book gathers together a variety of experiences which show-case different facets and methods for knowledge sharing in the context of rural communities. The second chapter presents the results of a workshop held in March 2006 in Ecuador, on &ldquo;knowledge-sharing for rural community development&rdquo;. The chapters that follow draw on five local experiences of using ICTs in different ways as tools for systematising, sharing and building knowledge. These are: in Bolivia, self-managed audio-visual documentation in various locations in Peru, an online agricultural information system in the Valley of Huaraz in Ecuador, a website and telecenters for relatives of migrants, in Cuenca, and photographic documentation for raising awareness in communities of shell-fish collectors in the mangroves of Esmeraldas in Uganda, exchange of agricultural knowledge with the help of radio, cell phones, <br />the internet and other technical supports. The remaining two chapters reflect on the following experiences:&nbsp; experiences of the National Indigenous and Farmer Coordination (CONIC) of Guatemala in resistence&nbsp;based upon Mayan indigenous knowledge the proposal for rural education and training developed by the Landless Workers' Movement, in Brazil. All these experiences share an emphasis on the importance of starting from needs and priorities as identified by the concerned communities, respecting local culture and means of communication. Above all, they illustrate that the contribution of technology to development will depend upon how the actors and the communities adapt it to their own goals. <br /><br />