Knowledge Sharing and Distance Learning for Sustainable Agriculture in the Asia Pacific: The Asia-Pacific Regional Technology Centre

Paper presented at the 1st SEAMEO Education Congress (SEC), "Challenges in the new millennium", 26-29 March 2001, Bangkok, Thailand

W. Wyn Ellis, Robert T. Raab, Buenafe R. Abdon

Introduction

Asia’s farmers are facing a dilemma. On the one hand they are trying to respond to an increasing demand for food and fibre. This demand is being driven by the region’s fast growing population which is expected to grow by 160% over the next 25 years. Food production will need to grow by 50-75% over this period just to keep pace. On the other hand, this increased production will depend on an already overextended natural recourse base. Vast areas of fertile land are being converted to non-agricultural uses and what remains is threatened by degradation from erosion, nutrient mining, waterlogging and salinization. Water availability per capita in the region has reduced by 50% from 1950 to 1980 and the rate is now increasing. Given this situation, “increases in yields will be difficult to accomplish. The challenge of increasing agricultural production is even more difficult in Asia where cropping intensities are already highest in the developing world. The potential for yield increases is further limited by poor agricultural resource management practices that result in unsustainable farming systems” (Nath, 1999). As if these challenges weren’t enough, the pressures of globalization mean that Asian farmers must compete with farmers the world over for a share of the market and to stay in business.

Are there any solutions to these problems? Many argue that widespread adoption of modern technological farming options offers the best way forward. FAO notes that “Millions of poor rural people desperately need access to updated technologies, including machines, improved plant varieties and animal breeds, better crop and post-harvest techniques, and higher investment. Seeing subsistence farming as a "traditional way of life" is part of a "rural nostalgic atavism that is out of step with reality (FAO, 2000).

Technological solutions, however, must contribute to and be compatible with the emerging principles of sustainable agriculture. A great deal of the focus of current agricultural research reflects this urgent priority. Unfortunately, farmers around the world have been slow to adopt sustainable agricultural practices. As Pretty (1995) states, "although there exists successful applications of sustainable agriculture throughout the world, very few farmers have adopted both the technologies or the practices".

Numerous reasons have been postulated to explain this situation. One is that poor small farmers are, by necessity, risk averse. As Reeves (2000) notes, “The concept of sustainable agriculture is difficult to deal with in most countries, particularly in many developing countries, where farmers have few resources and little flexibility to change their practices, and where the risks of failure often have tragic consequences.” Additionally, sustainability in agriculture is a complex "moving target. "Agriculture is based on dynamic biological, physical, and chemical systems, and farmers live in a constantly changing economic, social, and political environment. Given this scenario it is illogical to believe that there is a "magic bullet" to deliver sustainable agriculture to all farming locations (Reeves, 2000).

A recent UNESCO sponsored World Conference on Higher Education put forward a potential solution. “Sustainable development, including the preservation of the environment and the conservation of natural resources, is, without exception, a concern of every nation in the world. These challenges will require:

• a broad-based approach to “agricultural education”,
• innovative leadership including a greater involvement of the private sector and institutional partnerships, and
• new educational strategies such as a greater application of distance learning and community development initiatives. (Lindley, 1998)

Below we will discuss in more detail the learning needs of today’s agricultural professionals, changes these needs imply in the traditional educational approach, the importance of lifelong learning for agricultural professionals, the potential of new e-learning tools in this effort and the kinds of strategic multisectoral alliances that must be formed to respond to these changes. It concludes with a description of a recently established organization – the Asia Pacific Regional Technology Centre – which is committed to a vision of facilitating 2-way knowledge flows using modern communication and educational technologies and partnerships.

Agricultural Professionals’ Needs for Ongoing Professional Development

Sustainable agriculture presents a deeper and more fundamental challenge than many researchers, extensionists and policy previously assumed (Pretty, 1995). “Sustainable agriculture needs more than new technologies and practices. It needs agricultural professionals willing and able to learn from farmers; it needs supportive external institutions; it needs local groups and institutions capable of managing resources effectively; and above all it needs agricultural policies that support these features (Smith, undated).

Everyone recognizes the critical role played by agricultural professionals in linking technology sources to technology users. They are involved in assessing and articulating farmers’ technology needs, technology development, technology transfer and technology evaluation. But there is growing concern that today’s agricultural professionals do not have the knowledge and skills to be effective in the current situation. “It is clear that if we as agriculturists are to make effective progress, we must change the way we plan, conduct, and communicate about research. Any component of a farming system can become the limiting factor to sustainability. It is therefore essential that those who work with farmers to develop sustainable systems are knowledgeable about the systems with which they work. (Reeves, 2000). It follows that capacity building and professional development are fundamental prerequisites for achieving the widespread adoption of sustainable agricultural practices. Particularly important targets for these efforts are those agricultural professionals that are so vital in bridging the 2-way farm technology gap – the gap between what is known about sustainable agricultural practices and what is being applied at the farm level, and between what farmers know about sustainable agriculture and what research needs to learn. “Much information is unavailable or inaccessible, particularly to poor farmers, many practical lessons have been learnt but not shared, and there are few opportunities for dialogue to enable concerns to be resolved.” (FAO, 2000)

IPM – A Cornerstone of Sustainable Agriculture

Taking a closer look at Integrated Pest Management (IPM), one of the most fundamental technologies associated with sustainable agriculture, illustrates the issues involved in promoting sustainable agriculture and the role of agricultural professionals in the effort. “Integrated pest and weed management is often cited as one of the pillars of sustainable agriculture because it is based on sound biological principles: a multifaceted approach to pest and weed management usually makes both economic and environmental sense and is less likely to lead to the development of resistance in the target pests”. (Reeves, 2000).

The IPM approach eschews the old chemical based pest control technology which consisted “in covering a crop or field with insecticide or herbicide in order to kill offending weeds, insects and diseases. Application is typically done by timetable, and dosages are fixed. There is only limited response to current conditions in the use of this strategy. IPM, by contrast, is largely a set of responses to current conditions. The focus is on economic rather than physical damage, and a variety of measures are used to minimize economic losses. An IPM program might contain biological controls such as predator or sterile insects and pheromone traps, and cultural controls like crop rotation, as well as focused pesticide application. To implement an IPM strategy a farmer typically monitors his crop and the insect populations, making estimates of potential economic damage. If the damage threshold seems likely to be reached the farmer decides which counter-measure will be most effective and applies it. "Effective" here includes both biological and economic considerations. IPM is knowledge intensive, and requires considerable farm management skills. (Cowen, 1996). IPM, like many of the technologies associated with sustainable agriculture, requires farmers to substitute knowledge for the more traditional physical inputs associated with the green revolution (Hall, 1977).

While agricultural professionals may have a good understanding of IPM principles and concepts, effectively communicating these to farmers has proven to be a difficult task and requires major changes in approach. The first hurdle is for the agricultural professional is to recognize that the farmer is an expert. “IPM is not achieved by experts transferring rules to farmers, but by helping farmers themselves to become experts at adaptive management. From the professional this asks not only sound knowledge, but especially an ability to create learning situations for farmers and to learn interactively with them. Instead of FOR, professionals will have to work WITH their clients. (Röling, 1997).”

Agricultural Education

Training and education are key factors in bringing about change at the farm level. A speaker at a UNESCO sponsored conference noted that “While there are many complex factors that influence sustainable development and food security, it is clear that education in agriculture plays an important role in preparing farmers, researchers, educators, extension staff, members of agri-businesses and others to make productive contributions. (Lindley, 1998)”

But numerous studies indicate that the sector is beset by problems (Rogers, 1996; Rodríguez, 1999; Pretty, 1995). Lindley (1998) describes the situation clearly, “Poor quality training of agricultural professionals, technicians and producers has been identified as part of the global food security problem. Unfortunately, the training of human resources (the development of human capital) in agriculture is often not a high priority in the overall development plans of countries. As a result, curricula and teaching programmes are not necessarily relevant to the production needs and employment demands of the agricultural sector. Education in agriculture has not kept up with the increasingly sophisticated labour demands of the private sector.”

The situation calls for major changes and even a transformation in the way we view and implement agricultural education. Perhaps the most fundamental of the changes required will be to realize the tremendous need for continuing education programs for agricultural professionals.

Continuing Education for Agricultural Professionals

In today’s world of rapid and radical change, the fast pace of knowledge development and increased availability of information has fundamental implications for education. In the past, the knowledge a professional acquired through formal training could last a lifetime. Now, getting a degree has to be just the beginning of a professional’s learning career. As Röling (1997) notes, “People who had academic qualifications were something very special, elites, and above all, experts, who could solve problems for the rest of us. Alas those good old days are definitely gone. Professionals can no longer operate on the basis of acquired status. The knowledge they have gained soon becomes obsolete. The life cycle of expertise is no longer than that of a new generation of computer. The diversity of problems is such that uniform solutions cannot be imposed. What’s more, the people for and with whom professionals work are increasingly aware of the value of their own knowledge and increasingly educated to boot. Furthermore, they are increasingly skeptical about expert advice.”

This problem of professional obsolescence is already serious and becoming more so as the “information explosion” accelerates. According to a recent study conducted by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley the world now produces “between 1 and 2 exabytes of unique information per year, or roughly 250 megabytes for every man, woman and child on earth. This is equivalent to the textual content of 250 books (Lyman, 2000).” Much of this is potentially important for professionals in agriculture. Most major donor and research organizations (e.g. World Bank, FAO, CGIAR, IDRC, GTZ, ACIAR, etc.) are increasingly publishing agricultural related information and the Internet is making it much more accessible to interested individuals around the world. As Clarke (1998) notes, “Development organizations are great users of and producers of information” who act as intermediaries, “searching for and processing information for fieldworkers or farmers, or analysing and publishing results of fieldwork.”

But information does not equate to knowledge. Achieving this transformation requires a great deal of effort –not least by educators and educational institutions. They must accept responsibility not only for helping enrolled students understand and synthesize this vast body of information but also for helping working graduates keep up to date.

New Tools for Continuing Education – e-Learning

The most recent CCIAR review took note of agricultural professionals’ need for continuing education and pointed out the potential of the Internet for addressing it.

In industrialized nations, it is widely recognized that lifelong learning has become essential in a world driven by new science and technologies, with frequent retraining being needed for many professions. Fortunately we now have a new tool that makes this type of education much more readily possible. The World Wide Web is being used as a direct teaching tool that allows virtual classrooms of interacting students and faculty to be created through ‘asynchronous learning networks’. Because the Web allows a course taught at one site to be taken by students anywhere in the world, it increases enormously the ability to build scientific and technical capacity in developing nations (CGIAR Review Panel,1998).

What they are referring to is something now commonly known as e-learning. e-learning is the most recent evolution of distance learning - a learning situation where instructors and learners are separated by distance, time or both. e-Learning is - Internet-enabled learning -, or - The use of network technologies to create, foster, deliver, and facilitate learning, anytime and anywhere. The excitement generated by e-learning is almost universal among education professionals and their projections and claims are impressive. Management guru Peter Drucker maintains that, “Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics… It’s as large a change as when we got the printed book… Already we are beginning to deliver more lectures and classes off-campus via satellite or two-way video at a fraction of the cost (Abernathy, 1998)”.

Nevertheless, even with these new tools, the job of keeping agricultural professionals current is too big for the academic sector alone. Other actors have a both a stake in seeing this effort succeed and a role to play in achieving it.

Multisectoral Partnerships

Agricultural professionals work in a wide range of sectors. While previously concentrated in government and academic institutions, they are also an important resource for industry, development agencies and increasingly non-government and farmers’ organizations. And achieving more widespread adoption of sustainable agricultural practices will be easier to realize, and in fact may depend on, better collaboration between the sectors. Reeves (2000) gives just one example and points out that the complexity of sustainable agricultural systems “means that they are not easy to manage at "arm's length." For resource-poor farmers with limited or no access to remote communication centers, a "hands-on," community-centered approach is essential to provide timely and appropriate advice. Often NGOs are the most appropriate agencies to adapt and deliver such advice, and this is another clear example of the need for partnerships between those who develop, and those who deliver and adopt, sustainable agricultural systems”.

All sectors discussed here share a commitment to sustainable agriculture and it is obvious that collaborative efforts in professional development offer tremendous advantages to all partners. Universities would have the opportunity to enrich their course curricula, develop instructional staff, and reach greater numbers of students. Corporations would directly contribute to ensuring that newly hired staff were of the best quality and would be able to retain their intellectual edge. Government staff would be much more effective agents for change if equipped with up to date skills and have free access to the latest information (Raab, 1999). The NGO community would have access to a much greater knowledge and resource base than they now do. Also, as agricultural professionals routinely shift from one sector to the other or may be employed in one but provide consultancy services to another, developing human capital in one sector benefits all sectors. Partners can contribute from their respective strengths and simultaneously further their own institutional mandates.

Bridging the Intersectoral Divide - Constructivist Learning

Perhaps an even more important result of collaboration, particularly collaboration in e-learning and the development of agricultural professionals, is that it would provide an ideal mechanism for dealing with the current dichotomy between the philosophies of the different sectors. Even though all parties recognize the importance of sustainable agriculture each sector has its own definitions, prescriptions and approaches. The rhetorical ‘debate’ that goes on between sectors with different viewpoints has stalled and, in fact, is counterproductive in that it confuses the very people everyone professes to want to encourage to adopt sustainable agricultural practices - farmers.

While there are many models of e-learning being followed today, the best online courses are strongly influenced by the constructivist school of thought. Constructivist learning is based on students’ active participation in problem-solving and critical thinking. Students construct their own knowledge by testing ideas and approaches based on their prior knowledge and experience, applying these to a new situation, and integrating the new knowledge gained with pre-existing intellectual constructs. The student pursues a problem or activity by applying approaches he or she already knows and integrating those approaches with alternatives presented by other team members, research sources, or current experience. (Briner, 1999) Students arrive at ‘truth’ by analyzing and recognizing that there are many versions of ‘truth’.

What better way to cut through the rhetoric? If this model is followed students cannot be forced to accept the potentially biased beliefs of an autocratic “expert”. In e-learning students are much more in control of their learning and arrive at conclusions based on an exposure to a wide range of information sources and viewpoints and a critical evaluation of these inputs. In fact, in constructivist e-learning the teacher is also a co-learner and the teacher’s main role is to stimulate and provoke the student’s critical thinking, analysis and synthesis (Briner, 1999).

While the potential benefits of multisectoral partnerships are clear and offer distinct advantages to all involved, in actuality true partnerships of this nature are the exception rather than rule. In professional development efforts targeted to agriculturalists they are almost non-existent. The solution may lie in organizations dedicated specifically to fostering these partnerships, to training professionals engaged in sustainable agricultural, and to using the information and communication technology tools that will be required. The Asia Pacific Regional Technology Centre is one example.

The APRTC

The newly established (since January 2001) Asia Pacific Regional Technology Centre is dedicated to promoting sustainable agriculture in the Asia Pacific <http://www.aprtc.org>. A major strength of APRTC’s approach lies in its partnership approach. The APRTC intends to link with a wide range of regional organizations and institutions – public, private, NGOs, academic and development. It is based on the fundamental premise that the way forward for sustainable agriculture in Asia involves forging alliances comprised of a spectrum of partners and drawing on their diverse perspectives and unique advantages, practices and strengths. It is engaged in ongoing dialogues with a wide range of potential collaborators and formal relationships have already been established with 2 organizations – the NGO WorldView International Foundation (WIF) and the private sector association The Asia Pacific Crop Protection Association (APCPA).

A major component of APRTC’s approach involves using the latest communication techniques and mass media. It will operate as a ‘virtual campus’ and catalyst for information dissemination targeting agricultural professionals and eventually directly to farmers.

A major focus during 2001 for APRTC will be the development and implementation of a series of practical skills-based e-Learning courses focused on extending knowledge on sustainable agriculture and good agricultural practice to agricultural professionals. Courses currently completed or under construction include:

• Digital Literacy for Agricultural Professionals
• English for Agriculture
• Safe and Effective Use of Agrochemicals
• Introduction to Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
• IPM for Cotton
• IPM for Irrigated Rice
• IPM for Vegetables

The Digital Literacy and the English for Agriculture courses, while seemingly outside the Centre’s mandate, are considered essential for overall success and prerequisites are for more technically oriented subject matter courses dealing with sustainable agriculture. As these courses will be delivered via the Internet, participants must be comfortable using the tools and the terminology of the ‘Net’ and have a through understanding of what is involved in learning to learn online. Also, given the fact that “printed material of all kinds makes up less than 0.003 percent of the total storage of information” (Lyman, 2000) familiarity with digital information formats is essential for the modern agricultural professional. Similarly, these courses and the vast majority of online reference materials and resources are in English. Since these courses are aimed at agricultural professionals for whom English may not be a first language, a good grasp of agricultural English will be essential in order to maximize the benefits of the technical courses.

Today, perhaps the most pressing need in terms of partnerships is the inclusion of academia and working to establish such linkages is a major reason why the APRTC is attending this SEAMEO conference. It is felt that both regional academic institutions and the APRTC would gain much through collaboration. Academic institutions would benefit through:

• Enriched national course content (we would expect university faculty to use materials and knowledge gained through the partnership in their current teaching).
• Opportunity to develop and interact with a network of likeminded academics and practicing agricultural professionals.
• Revenue generation for faculty, resident graduate students and academic departments.
• Professional development through formal training and active participation in on-line course delivery.

The APRTC would benefit through:

• Access to experienced and dedicated teaching professionals.
• Enhanced credibility for courses.
• Potential accreditation for online students.

The APRTC is particularly excited about the prospects for working with two SEARCA-headed organizations - Asian Association of Agricultural Colleges and Universities (AAACU) as well as The Southeast Asian University Consortium for Graduate Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Conclusions

“The only way for agriculture to keep pace with population and alleviate world hunger is to increase the intensity of production in those ecosystems that lend themselves to sustainable intensification while decreasing the intensity of production in the more fragile ecologies” Borlaug and Dowswell (1997)

There’s no way around it. The pressures of population growth mean that the farmers of the world must produce more food and fiber. Also given is that, if they cannot do this without destroying the very resource base on which agriculture rests, the world is seriously compromising the livelihoods of future generations of farmers and the food security of consumers. More farmers adopting sustainable agricultural practices must be a priority concern of everyone.

There is wide consensus that agricultural professionals can be one of the most effective forces for change but that much more attention needs to be given to both their formal and, perhaps more importantly, their continuing education. The responsibility for carrying this out cannot be left entirely to academia but must also include the contributions from all sectors with a stake in agriculture and the sustainability of agriculture – private, development, government and non-government.

The Internet and its associated information and communication technologies have given us the tools to address the problems. As the World Bank notes,

Advances in communications have transformed society before: movable type, photography and telegraphy, the telephone, television, and the fax machine have all pushed outward the limits of our ability to store and transmit knowledge. Now the convergence of computing and telecommunications appears ready to shatter those limits, making it possible to send vast amounts of information anywhere in the world in seconds - at an ever-decreasing cost. This new technology greatly facilitates the acquisition and absorption of knowledge, offering developing countries unprecedented opportunities to enhance educational systems, improve policy formation and execution, and widen the range of opportunities for business and the poor. One of the great hardships endured by the poor, and by many others who live in the poorest countries, is their sense of isolation. The new communications technologies promise to reduce that sense of isolation, and to open access to knowledge in ways unimaginable not long ago (World Bank, 1999).

What is needed are organizations that can bring together the diverse stakeholders and that have the vision and skills to use these new tools to reach existing and future agricultural professionals with the information and training they require. The APRTC is one example. It is committed to the cause of promoting sustainable agriculture, is actively forging multisectoral partnerships and is applying the latest in information, communication and educational technologies. The Centre hopes that Asia’s academics and academic institutions will collaborate in its efforts. All partners will benefit as well as Asia’s current and future farmers and therefore the food security of the region.

References

Abernathy, D.J (1998) The WWW of distance learning: Who does what and where? In: Training and Development Magazine, 52, 9: 29-30. The American Society of Training and Development Inc.1640 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22313, U.S.A..

Borlaug, N.E., and C.R. Dowswell. (1997). The acid lands: one of agriculture's last frontiers. In A.C. Moniz et al. (eds.), Plant-soil Interactions at Low pH. Brazil: Brazilian Soil Science Society. Pp. 5-15.

Briner, M. (1999) Constructivism. [Online]. Available: http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/faculty/psparks/theorists/501const.htm [2001, March 20]

CGIAR System Review Panel (1998), Shaping the CGIAR’s future: CGIAR system review report. CGIAR Secretariat, 1818 H. Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20433, U.S.A.

Clarke, Kimberly (1998) The information explosion. . IT Publications, 103-105 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4HH, UK. [Online] Available: http://www.oneworld.org/itdg/journals/atleadmar98.html

Cowan, Robin and P. Gunby (1996) Sprayed to Death: Pest Control Strategies and Technological Lock-in, Economic Journal, May, vol 106: 521-42. [Online] Available: http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~racowan/pests.html

FAO (2001) Renewing SARD: Further progress toward sustainable agriculture and rural development requires a radical shift in priorities towards alleviating poverty and social exclusion. In Agriculture 21, March. [Online] Available: http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0103sp3.htm

Hall, Darwin C. (1977). The Profitability of Integrated Pest Management: Case Studies for Cotton and Citrus in the San Joaquin Valley. Bulletin of the Entomological Society, vol. 23.

Lindley, W. I. (1998) The Relevance of Higher Education in Agriculture and Rural Development. Speech delivered at World Conference on Higher Education; Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century; Vision and Action. UNESCO, Paris, 5 – 9 October. [Online] Available: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001170/117075e.pdf

Lyman, Peter and Hal R. Varian (2000) How Big Is the Information Explosion? iMP Magazine. [Online] Available: http://www.cisp.org/imp/november_2000/11_00lyman.htm

Nath, P. (1999) Economic Parameters for Small Holders. In: Proceeding of Food for the Billions: Sustainable Agriculture the Global Issue, Asia Pacific Crop Protection Association, Bangkok, Thailand.

Pretty, J.N. (1995). Regenerating Agriculture: Policies and Practice for Sustainability and Self-Reliance, London, England: Earthscan Publications, 320.

Raab, R.T., Abdon, B.R, and Golinowski, S. (1999) The international rice research institute’s current progress and future directions in the application of distance learning technologies for human capital development in national agricultural research systems. In: Proceedings of the PAN Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning: Empowerment through Knowledge and Technology, 1 - 5 March 1999, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam. The Commonwealth of Learning, 1285 West Broadway, Suite 600, Vancouver , BC V6H 3X8 Canada. [Online] Available: http://www.col.org/forum/casestudies.htm

Reeves, T. (1998) Sustainable Intensification of Agriculture. CIMMYT. Apdo. Postal 6-641, 06600 Mexico, D.F., Mexico. [Online] Available: http://www.cimmyt.cgiar.org/whatiscimmyt/SustInt.htm

Rodríguez, Lylian and John Kornerup Bang (1999) Capacity Building for Sustainable Rural Development: Education, a Priority. Proceedings of a Workshop March 22-26, 1999 Tune Landboskole Denmark. Organizer: The Danish Agricultural and Rural Development Advisers' Forum. [Online] Available: http://www.husdyr.kvl.dk/htm/php/tune99/27-Rodriguez.htm

Rogers, A. (1996). Participatory Training: Using Critical Reflection On Experience in Agricultural Extension Training. FAO Training for Agriculture and Rural Development, Economic and Social Development Series, No. 54.

Röling, Niels (1997) Address to the Symposium on International Post-Graduate Education in Agriculture and the Environment at the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the International Post-Graduate Programme of Wageningen Agricultural University on 29 January 1997. [Online] Available: http://online.kennis.org/en/lectures/roling/rolsamva.htm

Smith, Nicholas (undated) Seminar Review: No.7 Sustainable Agriculture - Myth or Reality? [Online] Available: http://www.science.plym.ac.uk/departments/geography/ggy384/susagr2.htm

The World Bank (1999) World Development Report 1998/99: Knowledge for Development –Summary. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20433. U.S.A.