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| The digital Green project is developing a participatory framework for agricultural extension | |||
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Overview: Scalability The DG database is not intended to be a physically centralized system. Instead, DG is designed to work as a decentralized network of hubs and spokes. Each hub is a demonstration village, which is transformed into a center of excellence through the concerted efforts of NGOs and experts, and the hubs themselves are “networked” together. The spokes are typically neighboring villages that also need help, but which are difficult to reach because of a lack in expert resources. Each hub is responsible for expert content production for the local region, content distribution in its local neighborhood, teacher training, and interactions with other hubs. Recording hubs in which field extension activities are concentrated provide a sequential stream of new content that can be screened to surrounding hubs and spokes. The hubs-and-spokes model is how we may effectively scale up the DG system. The applicability horizon of localized content depends on its type. Whereas an expert demonstration may be relevant to a wide geographical area (e.g., radius of around 20 km) beyond a hub, the motivation afforded by a farmer testimonial may be restricted to the immediate vicinity of where the farmer and village are known personally by the audience (e.g., radius of around 2 km). Spoke villages also participate in the content generation process for both internal and external consumption; however, the principal beneficiaries of the content will be the immediate peers of those farmers that are recorded. Content generated in spoke villages tends to be of lesser quality because experts are unavailable to support its production; however, worthy indigenous or innovative practices may be circulated for wider distribution as appropriate.
Under this approach, a NGO develops a hub by intensifying its efforts on a single village to encourage a significant portion of its farmers to adopt sustainable agricultural practices. The NGO identifies the best teachers to lead farmers through the systematic progression to sustainability described in Section 1. This process permits the organizing of a regular recording schedule in which resulting expert content is shared within the hub and with its neighboring spoke villages. Meanwhile, peer content is produced at both hubs and spokes to encourage farmer-to-farmer transference of better practices. This approach not only ensures content relevance, but also motivates farmers: recorded farmers strive to be models and farmers who receive the content are inspired to match their peers. Videos provide similar benefits to extension staff in terms of teacher training, motivation, and support. Under the hub and spokes model, the efforts of an extension organization are concentrated on a village that will be transformed into a center of agricultural excellence. These demonstration villages are used as field training for staff to showcase the transformation to sustainable agriculture. This process of transformation is formalized into a scheduled curriculum. For instance, staff may focus on promoting biodiversity in a village by distributing indigenous varieties of seeds and demonstrating the preparation of nurseries for two weeks and then demonstrate the process of transplanting and intercropping saplings with existing cash crops for two subsequent weeks. The schedule of hub activities is used as a basis for appropriate screening of DG content. DG content itself is used to train extension staff by standardizing dissemination techniques and agricultural methods. Like the encouragement provided to farmers through peer content, teachers are motivated to model their interactions with farmers according to the shown approaches because of their proximity to the recorded participants and locations. Extension staff may also consider recordings as an opportunity to model their performance to the standards established by their superiors. | |||
