Farmers’ agricultural knowledge has been responsible for improving agricultural productivity in Tanzania (Rutatora & Mattee, 2001). Reliable access to relevant information is a prerequisite for improved farmers’ knowledge. It is thus important to recognise the need for improved access to information, in order to achieve increased agricultural productivity in the country. Poultry production, as one of the most important agricultural activities, can only be improved if poultry farmers have reliable access to relevant poultry management information.
Agricultural information services have mostly been provided by the government through extension services, library and documentation services, research and training (URT, 2011a). Agricultural research has a major role to play in increasing the productivity and profitability of the sector through development of scientific knowledge to generate improved technologies for production systems. Agricultural extension complements this effort by transferring information and technologies developed by research institutions to farmers (Kapange, 2008). Library and
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documentation services have also been instrumental in disseminating useful information and knowledge to farmers. Training offers knowledge and skills to professionals and farmers, which help them in implementing various agricultural activities.
Agricultural research in Tanzania falls under the Tanzanian National Agricultural Research System (NARS), which has the responsibility of coordinating all agricultural activities in the country. NARS comprises both public and private organisations. Public organisations include the Department of Research and Development (DRD), Tropical Pesticides Research Institute (TPRI), Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), and the Tanzania Forestry Research Institute (TAFORI) (Kapange, 2008; Sempeho, 2004). The private sector includes non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The DRD of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security is the leading institution of the Tanzanian NARS, with the public role of conducting, coordinating and directing agricultural research within the country. Other organisations contribute to research and the dissemination of research findings to farmers. It has been recognised that strong linkages between major institutional actors in agricultural knowledge and information systems are essential for an effective flow of technology and scientific information between research, extension and farmers (Kapange, 2008; Sempeho, 2004). Research and extension have been brought closer to one another through the decentralisation of extension services under local government authorities, in order to better serve farmers and enhance their participation. At the national level, research and extension have strong informal linkages in the sharing and exchange of information through their respective Information and Documentation Units (IDU). These partnerships have been formed as far down as the zones, where Zonal Communication Centres (ZCC), located at zonal centres, serve the broad array of agricultural research information consumers. ZCCs are the medium for disseminating research outputs to farmers (Kapange, 2008; Sempeho, 2004).
Extension services play an important role in the provision of agricultural information and technologies to farmers. In Tanzania, the main provider of extension services is the government. Ninety to ninety five percent of the extension services are provided through the District Councils and specifically the District Agriculture and Livestock Development Office, headed by the District Agriculture and Livestock Development Officer (DALDO). Different sections under the
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DALDO supply the needed extension services to farmers in the villages (Shao, 2007). The private sector, such as NGOs, private agribusiness companies, farmers’ groups and donor funded projects participate in the dissemination of agricultural information and technologies (Rutatora & Mattee, 2001). For instance, the National Farmer Groups Network, known as MVIWATA, documents and disseminates agricultural information from research institutes and extension services to farmers through written materials, radio programmes and newsletters (Kaburire & Ruvuga, 2006). However, the extension services are poor due to weak coordination and linkages between research organisations, public and private extension services, and farmers; weak integration of livestock and crop specialists; and an insufficient level of farmer involvement. Other factors include the lack of proper prioritisation of problems; technology not being adapted to farmers’ conditions; research outputs not being available in an appropriate, usable and accessible form to farmers; lack of awareness of available technologies; and lack of training for farmers (Sempeho, 2004; Shao, 2007). Despite these problems, extension services are still the main method used for disseminating agricultural information to farmers in the rural areas of Tanzania (Dulle & Aina, 1999).
Library and documentation services in Tanzania are categorised as follows: public libraries, academic libraries, special libraries and documentation centres. Academic libraries serve teaching and research communities in various training institutions. In most cases, special libraries belong to research institutions, government departments, international organisations and industries. Special libraries are sometimes also referred to as documentation or information centres (Kaungamno, 1985). Public libraries fall under the Tanzania Library Services Board (TLSB), which is a national institution that operates under the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training. The TLSB has a mandate to promote, establish, equip and develop libraries, information centres and documentation centres in Tanzania (TLSB, 2009). TLSB has the role of ensuring that it provides information to all groups of people, including children, youth, adults and disadvantaged groups. In carrying out the above responsibilities, TLSB acquires, organises and distributes books, non-book materials and other forms of information material to individuals, schools, institutions and the public (TLSB, 2009). One agricultural library is mandated to serve the agricultural community in the country. The Sokoine National Agricultural Library (SNAL), which is a university library of the Sokoine University of Agriculture, also serves as a national
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agricultural library (SUA, 2011). However, SNAL has not been effective in serving farmers’ needs, due to limited resources. The library has not received enough support to facilitate the provision of agricultural information services to the farmers in rural areas. Thus, despite the mandate given to SNAL, rural communities still depend on public libraries to access agricultural information services (Manda, 2002). Furthermore, dissemination of agricultural information in Tanzania has been affected by poor communication between the main information custodians: the Sokoine National Agricultural Library, the Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH), the University of Dar es Salaam, IDU, and other DRD research institute libraries (Kapange, 2008; Sempeho, 2004).
Formal agricultural training in the country is mainly conducted by public institutions, including the Ministry of Agriculture Training Institutes (MATIs), Livestock Training Institutes (LITIs), Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), and the Moshi University College of Cooperative and Business Studies (MUCCOBS) (URT, 2001a). Private extension services such as NGOs also participate in training farmers and farmer groups on various issues (Heemskerk & Wennink, 2004). For instance, in 2009, a total of 1,058 extension officers and 75 extension workers from the private sector were recruited in order to extend services to farmers (URT, 2010). Trained extension staff, farmers and other agricultural professionals form the link between researchers and farmers, and at the same time serve as information intermediaries in local settings.
The Tanzanian government, through the World Bank, has been implementing different approaches for improving information services to farmers. Such approaches include the agricultural services support programme, where the Farmers’ Education and Publicity Unit (FEPU) was established under the national agricultural extension programme. FEPU developed and strengthened initiatives such as farmers’ training centres, farmers’ newsletters and radio programmes, and placed some educational material for farmer on videotapes (Rutatora & Mattee, 2001). Despite the government’s efforts to improve information services, farmers still face problems when accessing information in rural areas of Tanzania. Thus, in order to improve access to information in rural areas, there is a need to devise effective information dissemination strategies which take the information needs and information seeking behaviours of farmers into account.
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