Learning and sharing in communication
for rural development

• What processes and methodologies can be applied to design demand driven and inclusive rural communication policies/services to advance family farming in Asia Pacific? I’d go for a thorough scoping study first before we dive in to any interventions. Sometimes, it is very tempting to go on contemplating how ICTs can be used, what ICTs will be useful without looking first if ICT interventions are the most appropriate. I am speaking based on our experiences with the Infomediary Campaign, an action research that aims to mobilize high school students to serve as information providers in their respective rice farming communities. It was initially thought of as ICT-based project. When we, however, visited the sites, we found that they did not even have electricity. In 2009, we did a research on “E-readiness of the farmers in the five top rice-producing provinces of the Philippines”. It was a survey with close to 1000 farmers as respondents. From there, it was noted that the farmers wanted to receive information from printed publications so they can easily refer back to it should they have questions. ICT anxiety or the feeling of discomfort is one thing that we have repeatedly outlined in our papers. Given these conditions, it would do well to rethink overemphasis on ICTs. They surely are not a magic wand that will address all our concerns. This, however, is not to say that we should not utilize them. The only point is use them where appropriate. In our scoping studies for the...