Many African farmers can perform like Gold Medalists
If agriculture was an Olympics competition, many African farmers would certainly be gold medalists. Zephaniah Phiri, the late world class water harvester of Zvishavane in…
Limitations of using documents and reports to share knowledge in Africa
Many well-intentioned organisations and people are being frustrated by the shortcomings of using case studies, most significant change stories and conference presentations in spreading success…
Why some approaches and technologies are not moving beyond early adopters
A lot can be learnt from remarkable ways through which African socio-cultural systems generated and shared knowledge. There were reliable conduits for sharing knowledge from…
From farmers and traders to knowledge artisans
Many developing countries are witnessing trends where indigenous knowledge systems are transforming to a commercial stage. This is exposing the myth that indigenous knowledge can…
How can we build equilibrium knowledge ecosystems in developing countries?
There are many reasons why developing countries suffer from a severe mismatch between knowledge supply and demand. Less than 20% of knowledge in African countries…
Why we must assess knowledge uptake in agriculture and rural development
While a lot of resources have gone into producing and pushing information to farmers and rural people, there has not been enough effort into understanding…
How can we measure the cost of lost knowledge in the agriculture sector?
One of the enduring challenges in African agriculture is defining effective metrics to measure the value of knowledge. In most agricultural value chains, knowledge is…
From individual rewards to community incentives
Socio-economic challenges facing many developing countries are revealing the shortcomings of rewarding individual performance. Most problems have become so complex that individual people or organisations…
African agriculture is witnessing a shift from physical to value chain collateral
While African financial institutions are still stuck with traditional banking models invented in the West, African agricultural value chains have shifted in ways that threaten…
How can agricultural policy makers stay ahead of trends?
The way public and private institutions have been set up in most developing countries does not create space for adequately absorbing feedback from many people.…