eMKambo is increasingly meeting rural communities that have been schooled into valuing tangible assets like dams and tractors at the expense of intangible assets like knowledge on how to earn more value from those assets. In agricultural communities where assets like irrigation schemes and roads have been built or rehabilitated, people are still unsure how Read more about Empowering communities to evaluate their knowledge[…]
Instead on choosing a few value chains in which to specialize, some agribusinesses in developing countries are being compelled to embrace an ecosystems approach to agriculture. This is because each commodity has its limits. Many contract farming models are collapsing as value chains evolve into ecosystems where different agricultural commodities either complement or substitute each Read more about How ecosystems are replacing value chains in African food systems[…]
The capacity of data to accelerate agricultural transformation in developing countries is no longer questionable. However, a remaining challenge is limited capacity to set systems for continuous data collection. Without that capacity, it is difficult for policy makers to put in place a set of coherent building blocks for delivering tangible value to farmers, consumers Read more about The role of data in accelerating agricultural transformation[…]
eMKambo recently heard a story of how a veterinary doctor surprised livestock farmers when he told them he did not have the expertise to artificially inseminate their cattle. The farmers had travelled from distant areas to come and witness the first scientific experiment in the history of their rural farming community. There is no shortage Read more about The curse of forgetting useful information and knowledge[…]
When farmers who have spent years looking for satisfactory answers to their challenges finally get a solution, such a moment of truth becomes a moment of healing. A different feeling often embraces farmers when they finally discover that agriculture markets are always in a random walk such that price is just one part of a Read more about Market information and knowledge as therapy[…]
While African countries neglect their informal economies in planning and policy development, the informal sector provides several avenues of looking at knowledge. One of these avenues is the relationship between slow and fast knowledge. Commodities flowing into informal markets from farming areas reveal the extent to which slow and fast knowledge have distinct characteristics. Slow Read more about Slow knowledge and fast knowledge in African Agriculture[…]
While there is an increase in emphasis on evidence-based policy, evidence-based medicine and evidence-based this and that, people’s collective experiences may be more powerful than evidence alone. If African agriculture and rural development relied solely on evidence without people’s tangible experiences, most development initiatives would not achieve much. Evidence in the form of facts and Read more about Making sense of differences between evidence and experience[…]
If concerns and opportunities of people living at the grassroots of developing countries are to be fully understood, evidence gathering tools have to go beyond questionnaires and other techniques designed in the English language. To the extent that facts and figures represent the hardware, in most grassroots communities, feelings and opinions represent the software which Read more about Using evidence to articulate grassroots concerns and opportunities[…]
For every US$500 million that has goes into agricultural production in Africa, another US$500 million is not injected into the market in order to stimulate demand for what is produced. As a results, gluts continue to alternate with shortages of commodities. A major reason is lack of investment in gathering and re-using fluid evidence. Monitoring Read more about Using feedback to stabilize growth and expand opportunities[…]
Another way of increasing the relevance of International Women’s Day which is celebrated on the 8th of March every year is to notice and reflect on how female traits and values play out at grassroots level. If it wasn’t for the presence of feminine traits like empathy, humility, intuition, flexibility, inclusiveness, generosity, balance and patience, Read more about Recognizing the role of feminine traits in local economies[…]