Agricultural information services in Kenya and Third World needs
Identifieur interne : 000460 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 000459; suivant : 000461Agricultural information services in Kenya and Third World needs
Auteurs : Shiraz DurraniSource :
- Journal of Librarianship and Information Science [ 0961-0006 ] ; 1987-04.
Abstract
The article examines the failure of agricultural information systems in the Third World to provide relevant information in support of food pro duction. In many independent African countries (Kenya is taken as an example) there has been little qualitative change in the information services since colonial times; new technologies have been introduced which are more suitable for industrialized countries. Present-day agricultural information services are examined and solutions are suggested. However, a real solution cannot emerge until the social, economic and political foundations of society undergo a transformation which will allow the emergence of a people- orientated information service.
Url:
DOI: 10.1177/096100068701900203
Links to Exploration step
ISTEX:DE6B35BFFD1067DDE87B45F6E6FB45A40663A772Le document en format XML
<record><TEI wicri:istexFullTextTei="biblStruct"><teiHeader><fileDesc><titleStmt><title xml:lang="en">Agricultural information services in Kenya and Third World needs</title><author wicri:is="90%"><name sortKey="Durrani, Shiraz" sort="Durrani, Shiraz" uniqKey="Durrani S" first="Shiraz" last="Durrani">Shiraz Durrani</name></author></titleStmt><publicationStmt><idno type="wicri:source">ISTEX</idno><idno type="RBID">ISTEX:DE6B35BFFD1067DDE87B45F6E6FB45A40663A772</idno><date when="1987" year="1987">1987</date><idno type="doi">10.1177/096100068701900203</idno><idno type="url">https://api.istex.fr/document/DE6B35BFFD1067DDE87B45F6E6FB45A40663A772/fulltext/pdf</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Istex/Corpus">000460</idno><idno type="wicri:explorRef" wicri:stream="Istex" wicri:step="Corpus" wicri:corpus="ISTEX">000460</idno></publicationStmt><sourceDesc><biblStruct><analytic><title level="a" type="main" xml:lang="en">Agricultural information services in Kenya and Third World needs</title><author wicri:is="90%"><name sortKey="Durrani, Shiraz" sort="Durrani, Shiraz" uniqKey="Durrani S" first="Shiraz" last="Durrani">Shiraz Durrani</name></author></analytic><monogr></monogr><series><title level="j">Journal of Librarianship and Information Science</title><idno type="ISSN">0961-0006</idno><idno type="eISSN">1741-6477</idno><imprint><publisher>Sage Publications</publisher><pubPlace>Sage CA: Thousand Oaks, CA</pubPlace><date type="published" when="1987-04">1987-04</date><biblScope unit="volume">19</biblScope><biblScope unit="issue">2</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" from="108">108</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" to="120">120</biblScope></imprint><idno type="ISSN">0961-0006</idno></series><idno type="istex">DE6B35BFFD1067DDE87B45F6E6FB45A40663A772</idno><idno type="DOI">10.1177/096100068701900203</idno><idno type="ArticleID">10.1177_096100068701900203</idno></biblStruct></sourceDesc><seriesStmt><idno type="ISSN">0961-0006</idno></seriesStmt></fileDesc><profileDesc><textClass></textClass><langUsage><language ident="en">en</language></langUsage></profileDesc></teiHeader><front><div type="abstract" xml:lang="en">The article examines the failure of agricultural information systems in the Third World to provide relevant information in support of food pro duction. In many independent African countries (Kenya is taken as an example) there has been little qualitative change in the information services since colonial times; new technologies have been introduced which are more suitable for industrialized countries. Present-day agricultural information services are examined and solutions are suggested. However, a real solution cannot emerge until the social, economic and political foundations of society undergo a transformation which will allow the emergence of a people- orientated information service.</div></front></TEI><istex><corpusName>sage</corpusName><author><json:item><name>Shiraz Durrani</name></json:item></author><articleId><json:string>10.1177_096100068701900203</json:string></articleId><language><json:string>eng</json:string></language><originalGenre><json:string>research-article</json:string></originalGenre><abstract>The article examines the failure of agricultural information systems in the Third World to provide relevant information in support of food pro duction. In many independent African countries (Kenya is taken as an example) there has been little qualitative change in the information services since colonial times; new technologies have been introduced which are more suitable for industrialized countries. Present-day agricultural information services are examined and solutions are suggested. However, a real solution cannot emerge until the social, economic and political foundations of society undergo a transformation which will allow the emergence of a people- orientated information service.</abstract><qualityIndicators><score>6.185</score><pdfVersion>1.4</pdfVersion><pdfPageSize>405 x 590 pts</pdfPageSize><refBibsNative>false</refBibsNative><abstractCharCount>695</abstractCharCount><pdfWordCount>4509</pdfWordCount><pdfCharCount>27235</pdfCharCount><pdfPageCount>13</pdfPageCount><abstractWordCount>98</abstractWordCount></qualityIndicators><title>Agricultural information services in Kenya and Third World needs</title><genre><json:string>research-article</json:string></genre><host><volume>19</volume><publisherId><json:string>LIS</json:string></publisherId><pages><last>120</last><first>108</first></pages><issn><json:string>0961-0006</json:string></issn><issue>2</issue><genre><json:string>journal</json:string></genre><language><json:string>unknown</json:string></language><eissn><json:string>1741-6477</json:string></eissn><title>Journal of Librarianship and Information Science</title></host><categories><wos><json:string>social science</json:string><json:string>information science & library science</json:string></wos><scienceMetrix><json:string>economic & social sciences</json:string><json:string>social sciences</json:string><json:string>information & library sciences</json:string></scienceMetrix></categories><publicationDate>1987</publicationDate><copyrightDate>1987</copyrightDate><doi><json:string>10.1177/096100068701900203</json:string></doi><id>DE6B35BFFD1067DDE87B45F6E6FB45A40663A772</id><score>0.055798203</score><fulltext><json:item><extension>pdf</extension><original>true</original><mimetype>application/pdf</mimetype><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/DE6B35BFFD1067DDE87B45F6E6FB45A40663A772/fulltext/pdf</uri></json:item><json:item><extension>zip</extension><original>false</original><mimetype>application/zip</mimetype><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/DE6B35BFFD1067DDE87B45F6E6FB45A40663A772/fulltext/zip</uri></json:item><istex:fulltextTEI uri="https://api.istex.fr/document/DE6B35BFFD1067DDE87B45F6E6FB45A40663A772/fulltext/tei"><teiHeader><fileDesc><titleStmt><title level="a" type="main" xml:lang="en">Agricultural information services in Kenya and Third World needs</title></titleStmt><publicationStmt><authority>ISTEX</authority><publisher>Sage Publications</publisher><pubPlace>Sage CA: Thousand Oaks, CA</pubPlace><availability><p>SAGE</p></availability><date>1987</date></publicationStmt><sourceDesc><biblStruct type="inbook"><analytic><title level="a" type="main" xml:lang="en">Agricultural information services in Kenya and Third World needs</title><author xml:id="author-1"><persName><forename type="first">Shiraz</forename><surname>Durrani</surname></persName></author></analytic><monogr><title level="j">Journal of Librarianship and Information Science</title><idno type="pISSN">0961-0006</idno><idno type="eISSN">1741-6477</idno><imprint><publisher>Sage Publications</publisher><pubPlace>Sage CA: Thousand Oaks, CA</pubPlace><date type="published" when="1987-04"></date><biblScope unit="volume">19</biblScope><biblScope unit="issue">2</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" from="108">108</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" to="120">120</biblScope></imprint></monogr><idno type="istex">DE6B35BFFD1067DDE87B45F6E6FB45A40663A772</idno><idno type="DOI">10.1177/096100068701900203</idno><idno type="ArticleID">10.1177_096100068701900203</idno></biblStruct></sourceDesc></fileDesc><profileDesc><creation><date>1987</date></creation><langUsage><language ident="en">en</language></langUsage><abstract xml:lang="en"><p>The article examines the failure of agricultural information systems in the Third World to provide relevant information in support of food pro duction. In many independent African countries (Kenya is taken as an example) there has been little qualitative change in the information services since colonial times; new technologies have been introduced which are more suitable for industrialized countries. Present-day agricultural information services are examined and solutions are suggested. However, a real solution cannot emerge until the social, economic and political foundations of society undergo a transformation which will allow the emergence of a people- orientated information service.</p></abstract></profileDesc><revisionDesc><change when="1987-04">Published</change></revisionDesc></teiHeader></istex:fulltextTEI><json:item><extension>txt</extension><original>false</original><mimetype>text/plain</mimetype><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/DE6B35BFFD1067DDE87B45F6E6FB45A40663A772/fulltext/txt</uri></json:item></fulltext><metadata><istex:metadataXml wicri:clean="corpus sage not found" wicri:toSee="no header"><istex:xmlDeclaration>version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"</istex:xmlDeclaration><istex:docType PUBLIC="-//NLM//DTD Journal Publishing DTD v2.3 20070202//EN" URI="journalpublishing.dtd" name="istex:docType"></istex:docType><istex:document><article article-type="research-article" dtd-version="2.3" xml:lang="EN"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="hwp">splis</journal-id><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">LIS</journal-id><journal-title>Journal of Librarianship and Information Science</journal-title><issn pub-type="ppub">0961-0006</issn><publisher><publisher-name>Sage Publications</publisher-name><publisher-loc>Sage CA: Thousand Oaks, CA</publisher-loc></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.1177/096100068701900203</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">10.1177_096100068701900203</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="heading"><subject>Articles</subject></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title>Agricultural information services in Kenya and Third World needs</article-title></title-group><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Durrani</surname><given-names>Shiraz</given-names></name></contrib></contrib-group><pub-date pub-type="ppub"><month>04</month><year>1987</year></pub-date><volume>19</volume><issue>2</issue><fpage>108</fpage><lpage>120</lpage><abstract><p><italic>The article examines the failure of agricultural information systems in the Third World to provide relevant information in support of food pro duction. In many independent African countries (Kenya is taken as an example) there has been little qualitative change in the information services since colonial times; new technologies have been introduced which are more suitable for industrialized countries. Present-day agricultural information services are examined and solutions are suggested. However, a real solution cannot emerge until the social, economic and political foundations of society undergo a transformation which will allow the emergence of a people- orientated information service.</italic></p></abstract><custom-meta-wrap><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>sagemeta-type</meta-name><meta-value>Journal Article</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>search-text</meta-name><meta-value>108 Agricultural information services in Kenya and Third World needs SAGE Publications, Inc.1987DOI: 10.1177/096100068701900203 Shiraz Durrani The article examines the failure of agricultural information systems in the Third World to provide relevant information in support of food pro duction. In many independent African countries (Kenya is taken as an example) there has been little qualitative change in the information services since colonial times; new technologies have been introduced which are more suitable for industrialized countries. Present-day agricultural information services are examined and solutions are suggested. However, a real solution cannot emerge until the social, economic and political foundations of society undergo a transformation which will allow the emergence of a people- orientated information service. The past year has seen African peasants, pastoralists' and workers facing mass malnutrition, starvation and death. In the face of this calamity, it would be reasonable to expect African information workers to disseminate information on the causes of and remedies for this suffering. But this has not happened to any significant level. It is not individual information workers who should shoulder the blame for this failure to spotlight the natural and, more important, social reasons for the failure of the potentially rich lands to feed the people. Indeed, most of the rank and file information workers are hard working and totally committed to the cause of providing information for the people. The failure to provide the people of Kenya with an appropriate information service is due to faults in the whole information system; after Independence the system was not adapted to satisfy the information needs of the population as a whole. This is a reflection of the prevailing social, economic and political reality which has not only suppressed people's creativity, but has ensured real development only for an elite, leaving the majority of the people without even basic subsistence. One cannot see an information service in a vacuum; its failures need to be examined in the context of its social reality, and any improvements will also depend on a changed reality in society. SHIRAZ DURRANI is a librarian with the London Borough of Hackney. He was formerly employed as a librarian at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. He has written extensively on the field of communication in Kenya and in the Third World generally. Forthcoming publications include Publishing and imperialism in Kenya (Vita Books). 43109 The information systems that exist today in the Third World have not dropped from the sky, but have evolved over many years in the course of social struggles. Thus, for example, two distinct agricultural information services have developed in Kenya. The first is the service which was developed by the peasants, based on word of mouth, and was used to pass on useful experiences and practices in agriculture to the next generation, as well as to inform everybody involved in productive work in the community about useful agricultural practices. The other information service is the 'official' one which, having been established by the British colonial authorities to serve its own economic interests, has always served the needs of the ruling classes. This 'official' library service ignored the information needs of Kenyan peasants. For example, information on export crops such as coffee and tea, on which the colonial settlers depended, was readily available, but the people's food crops such as beans, millet, sorghum, cassava and maize were all ignored.2 Since Independence, there has not been a significant qualitative change in the agricultural information system. Although there has been an increase in the quantity of book and periodical material, in the number of people working in information centres, and in the number of library buildings, there has not been a corresponding improvement in the quality and relevance of agricultural information services. That the potential is there is shown in the work of new institutions such as the Kenya Agricultural Information Service and the Kenya Agricultural Documentation Centre. These and other similar systems (e.g. the current awareness service provided by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute) have found it difficult to function to their full potential given the prevailing socio-economic conditions. We will examine below some aspects of information services that will have to change in order to meet the needs of the rural community in Kenya today. THE USERS OF AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION Kenya, in common with many other Third World countries, has not yet resolved this fundamental question: who are the users of agricultural information at whom services should be aimed? The colonial belief was that it was only the settlers, bureaucracy, research and educational staff and perhaps extension workers who needed agricultural information. This practice of looking only at these groups as potential users has not changed much, except perhaps the settlers have been replaced by local 'telephone farmers' living in Nairobi, and by large-scale plantations which 44110 are controlled by transnational agribusiness which satisfies its own information needs. The secondary level agricultural extension staff are covered but they are not always able to pass on information to peasants. The main group of potential users who have been left out altogether as far as information needs are concerned is that of the peasants, who are the ones actually practically involved in the labour of cultivation. Thus the largest number of potential agricultural information users are denied the information which should be theirs by right. Agriculture cannot develop fully if the peasants are not given relevant agricultural information. What is needed is a totally new approach to agricultural information which should put the peasants at the centre of such a system. The importance of land to the lives of the people is obvious: over 90 per cent of Kenyans are peasants, pastoralists, fisher people or workers on land; basic human needs such as food, clothing and shelter are satisfied directly or indirectly by people working on land. By ignoring the information needs of this sector, we are really ignoring agriculture itself and inviting famine. New rural-based libraries will have to be established to replace the present system where rural libraries are only branches of the urban library set-up, merely miniature urban libraries, without any thought given to the particular problems of rural information needs. Thus, rural libraries will have to stop circulating English and American fiction, and irrelevant material from all over the world on every conceivable topic, and concentrate on what is relevant to the peasant-e.g. the centuries-old irrigation system developed by peasants of Marakwet.3 Other important information needs that will have to be satisfied are those of the urban farmers. One can see their maize and vegetable shambas (plots) along every road in major towns, including Nairobi. The office workers, factory workers, domestic and 'informal sector' workers, the unemployed-in fact, most urban people-use every available piece of land to grow subsistence and cash crops and to keep poultry, pigs and goats. Yet no attempts have been made by our present library service to reach them. TRAINING OF AGRICULTURAL LIBRARIANS AND INFORMATION WORKERS Perhaps one of the first steps to be taken in building up a relevant library service for rural needs will be the appropriate training of agricultural librarians and information workers. Only when a large number of people are given this type of training and are stationed in rural information centres can we hope to see a change in the situation. 45111 All trainee rural librarians should be given a basic course in agriculture and a course in awareness about conditions in the countryside. It would be advantageous to allow students of librarianship to live and work among peasants so that they acquire practical knowledge about their lives and their information needs. Rural librarians and information workers should be recruited from among the local peasants. Librarians who have grown up in the area and know the local conditions, language and people will obviously be trusted more by rural users and will be more effective in providing a relevant library service. Of course, this should not preclude the creation of a national consciousness and outlook, as librarians can be moved to urban as well as other rural libraries once they have served their own area for a specific period. There is also a need to provide a refresher course in Kenyan agricultural librarianship for all librarians who have qualified in the past, locally or overseas, so as to reorient them to the widespread need for agricultural information and to rid the service of many 'senior' librarians' bureaucratic tendencies. The student recruitment policy of institutions which train librarians will need to be changed so that the present overemphasis on academic qualifications is modified; admission should be open to those who may not have full academic qualifications but who are committed and have capacity for hard work, and long practical experience. All librarians, trained or untrained, should have the right to adopt and to experiment with new ideas on practical librarianship. There is a tendency at present on the part of the old, established librarians-who had often been promoted by the outgoing colonial administration in a process of `localization'-to suppress the initiative and enthusiasm of more resourceful librarians. Over the years, these older librarians have risen even higher in the profession and have become new 'experts' and have controlled the profession as exclusively their own, private business. They have seen any new ideas coming from a new generation of committed librarians as a personal challenge and have opposed them, good or bad, thus depriving the profession of new ideas which could have provided solutions in a changing situation. These new ideas have not come only from the rank and file librarians; they really express the voice of the people with whom they have close links. The senior librarians, meanwhile, have been increasingly alienated from the majority of working people in the country, reflecting their rise in economic status. This has increased their isolation and they have sought to 46112 maintain their authority by being more repressive towards those they are supposed to lead.4 THE CONTENT OF AN AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION COLLECTION The issue of the content of a library is central to any discussion on an information service. If the content of a collection does not reflect the information needs of its potential users, the service will never provide that information which will solve problems in society. It will then not matter whether the most modern technologies are used or the best features of the oral medium are employed. The use of a particular medium in itself does not ensure the success of a service and even the oral medium has been used to give wrong information. It is only the content of a library that will decide whether the information supplied is relevant or not. Although a large volume of agricultural information from all over the world is collected by agricultural libraries, this is often done without an overall acquisitions policy which would recognize the central role of local collections. It is, of course, necessary to collect material from those parts of the world which have similar climate, land forms, and agricultural, economic and social backgrounds. In fact, accounts of such experiences from other countries should be more readily available to peasants, but only in a balanced way. Clearly there is no need to collect a lot of detailed information on, say, farming in the USA with its totally different socio-economic conditions when no material is available on the experiences of Tanzanian peasants, not to mention those of the Boran pastoralists from within Kenya itself. A large part of local agricultural information has never been collected in Third World libraries. This should be a priority activity. This is the information that is passed from generation to generation of peasants by word of mouth which has continued to develop and change in keeping with changing needs in the society. It includes much useful information which has been tested and proved correct over centuries of practice. It is in this area that the so-called 'traditional' and 'modern' practices of librarianship should join hands to make relevant information accessible through the use of modern technologies. The training of agricultural librarians should emphasize the collection, organization, storage and dissemination of this information, not only in print but in non-print media such as sound and film tapes, radio and television broadcasts as well. Material collected in agricultural libraries should reflect the information needs of peasants. Investigations should be held to ascertain what these needs are. Then abstracts should be prepared to show what information is 47113 available by districts and provinces, by crops, by climatic zones, as well as by names of the various nationalities5 who live in the country, such as the Bajun, the Giriama and the Somali. Ways should then be found to make the information available to the peasants. LANGUAGE OF AGRICULTURAL COLLECTIONS All Third World countries are linguistically very rich, with a wide variety of languages used by the peasants. These languages are the countries' cultural wealth and should not be seen as factors which divide people. It is the cultural diversity of the various nationalities who inhabit Kenya that gives a deep and rich dimension to the culture of Kenya as a whole. The languages spoken by peasants are especially rich in agricultural usage and vocabulary, the languages themselves having evolved in the course of their experiments on the land. There are more words describing agricultural activities, processes, crops and technology than are available in European languages. Yet most of the information in Third World agricultural libraries is in foreign languages like English and French. If the agricultural libraries wish to address their services to the people of their own countries (as opposed to an undefined international audience), they will need to collect and disseminate more information in their own languages. They will need to translate material from one national language of the country to another and also to translate from foreign languages into the national languages spoken by the peasants. In the final analysis, whatever the personal views of librarians on the language issue, if they are to succeed professionally in acquiring, disseminating and storing knowledge and information, they will have to adopt the languages of the peasants. It is the library which will have to accept the languages of the peasants-who naturally have strong cultural and scientific attachments to them-and not the other way round. If the content of a collection is the most important aspect of an 'information-for- life' service, then use of the languages of the peasants is the next most important aspect. THE MEDIA OF COMMUNICATION The sad point about the agricultural information system in Kenya, and in many other Third World countries, is that it is a passive system, originally established during colonial times to serve an elite audience. The service makes certain assumptions about its users which, however, do not fit the 48114 social reality of the country today. These assumptions include the following : that rural people have easy access to library buildings, that they have full proficiency in foreign languages, that they have free time in which to read, that whatever material they find in libraries will be relevant to them. One telling aspect of the passive library system is the almost exclusive use of the print medium. Although it is more effective and cheaper to use non-print media to disseminate information, our libraries have stubbornly continued to use print. They are ready to use computer technologies for in-house activities, yet will not adopt the multi-senses media that have been developed by the peasants, and those made available by today's technologies. Although occasional radio programmes are used to disseminate agricultural information, there is no national information dissemination policy which would make possible well-organized and co-ordinated radio and television broadcasts which could be combined with print material and extension staff activities so as to form a basis for a people-orientated information service.6 At present no attempt is made in radio broadcasts to allow for particular differences in climatic conditions, land use, tenure and social customs, and transport difficulties in different areas of the country. It is assumed that agricultural theories are applicable universally; there is no consideration for particularities of application in specific areas. The same radio broadcasts are supposed to satisfy information needs both in fertile, well-watered areas and in very dry areas. Television is, of course, used almost exclusively for the entertainment of the urban rich, and its potential as a powerful medium of information dissemination is wasted. INFORMATION TRANSMISSION OR INFORMATION COMMUNICATION? As before Independence, agricultural libraries see their role in terms of information transmission rather than information communication, which implies a two-way exchange of information. This arose from the belief that peasants have no useful agricultural information which can be collected by libraries, that they do not have views on any aspects of agriculture or on the information that reaches them on new methods of farming. They are considered as recipients of information only. Their failure to understand foreign languages is often taken to mean a lack of intelligence. Hence, the library services see no reason to seek their participation in the process of communication. Libraries established under colonial influences collect information from all over the world, especially from the industrialized Western countries, and this is supposed to satisfy local needs. As we saw earlier, this affects the 49115 content of such libraries. In order to change this situation, the libraries will need to become, in practice, centres for the exchange of views, ideas, experiences and information between peasants and librarians; the latter bringing in relevant information from other peasants, scholars, government officials and other countries. In implementing this new concept of rural librarianship, our librarians will evolve new theories and new practices. THE OPPRESSION OF TECHNOLOGY Third World agriculture and agricultural information systems are increasingly being seen by transnational corporations as fertile grounds for profit and plunder. Agriculture itself has become one of the largest items of world trade and wealth. 'Advanced' agricultural technologies are being pushed on Third World countries. These include 'improved' seeds, fertilizers, machinery, computers, marketing and distribution 'systems'-the list is almost endless. Although such things are not necessarily bad in themselves, the profit motive of those pushing them is very strong. Third World agriculture forms ties and inevitably becomes totally dependent on transnational agribusiness. The agribusiness in turn exploits its control in order to maximize profits.7 Third World libraries often become tools in the hands of 'advanced technologies' when they one-sidedly collect and disseminate to peasants information on such technologies, without at the same time providing a similar input on the not so advanced technologies in use by peasants which may be more suitable to the particular needs in a country. Information itself has become a commodity to be bought and sold, like agricultural commodities, on the market. When a few voices are raised questioning the relevance of all these technologies in the present conditions of Third World agriculture, new tactics are employed. 'Appropriate technologies' are brought in to reap yet another harvest of super profits for the 'appropriate technology industry'. The information field itself has also been invaded by the super and 'appropriate' technologies. It is no longer possible for Third World librarians to remain 'neutral' and uncommitted in the face of this invasion of technologies. This is not to deny the usefulness of new technologies if used properly and under the control of the people themselves. For this to happen, such technologies have to be rationally examined in the light of local conditions, local existing technologies and the alternatives available. Foreign technologies can then be selectively used to supplement local ones, keeping in mind local conditions and needs. The question of priorities should also 50116 be considered. In view of the limited resources available, deep thought should be given to whether national resources would be best used to provide a cheap and reliable water supply for peasants using local resources, technologies and labour or to acquire the latest foreign technologies and computers (e.g. for our libraries) to do work which can be done by local people, who in the process will find employment and perhaps develop their own appropriate technologies. It is often assumed that only those technologies that come from industrialized countries can be classified as 'real' technologies and those that are developed by peasants in the Third World cannot be so classified. In fact, peasant-developed technologies are more relevant and appropriate as they have been developed under local conditions. They can even provide a much stronger foundation for the development of local technical and industrial revolutions in conjunction with selected advanced technologies from other countries. It should be the primary role of agricultural librarians to document such local technologies and to publish local technology indexes by agricultural zones so as to draw to the attention of other peasants existing technologies which they can adopt and improve. In general, it should be the role of agricultural librarians to ensure that it is the people who are in command of technologies, not for profit but to improve production to satisfy their basic needs. They can do this by documenting and disseminating knowledge about appropriate technologies developed by peasants from different regions and countries. They should also be active in innovating appropriate technologies in their own profession. Librarians have a crucial role to play in the whole field of development and application of technologies in society. By providing wrong or inappropriate information, or no information at all, they can indirectly lead society to starvation; but by providing relevant information in a balanced way they can support and sustain life. Each of us is making a choice in this matter. WHY DO AGRICULTURAL LIBRARIES FAIL TO COMMUNICATE? It is clear that Third World agricultural libraries have, in the main, failed to break out of the mould into which they were set during the colonial experience. Often librarians are passive disseminators of information in a one-sided way and do not give much thought to collecting the vast amount of information that is available in oral and other non-print forms. Why is it that the libraries have remained classic examples of non- communication ? In an age when it is possible to reach the moon, it is not 51117 technically difficult to devise an information service that can communicate life-giving information. Just as it is possible for every peasant house to have a nearby source of Coca-Cola but no ready source of water, so it is possible for every peasant household to receive a Coca-Cola advertisement but no information that can be useful in the productive activities on the land. This is a measure of the failure of today's information services. And the reasons for this failure are social and economic, not technical; the solutions will have to be found in the social and economic fields and not in an ever increasing import of foreign high technology. The real reasons for the failure are to be found in the world's social-economic-political set-up today. There is fierce rivalry over the control of Third World mineral, industrial, agricultural and human resources. In this rivalry, not only has information become an industry and a source of enormous profit, but its possession brings a great deal of strategic power. Knowledge of availability of good soil, sources of water, minerals and oil in particular areas can give the possessor control of many aspects of life of a country. With the development of satellite scanning techniques, those countries which control this technology have more information about Third World resources than the Third World countries themselves. This gives them the power to use the information to suit their own needs, or to withhold it, as when information about the presence of underground oil resources is withheld from the country itself to benefit commercial interests. Thus agricultural information has come to be monopolized by transnationals who control more information about a particular country than even the major agricultural libraries in that country. Third World agriculture, and its information system itself, have been split into two contradictory systems. The first has all the information on scientific farming at its disposal, as well as the vast resources needed to exploit Third World land and labour. This is the plantation sector which is controlled by transnational agribusiness concerns whose annual profits are much higher than the incomes of several countries put together. With their enormous political and economic power these transnationals get the best land and best labour, as well as total control over their own pricing policy, profits, exports and imports. In the information field, this sector of agriculture, which is really outside national control, commands the latest scientific information and initiates its own research projects. It even buys up the best and most experienced and skilled information workers, thus depriving the national sector of this vital element. But its interest in developing local agriculture is marginal. It usually produces non-food products for export. Even when food crops are grown they are not for local consumption but for export. 52118 Thus the best land in the country produces for export, mostly to industrialized countries. This plantation sector sees its activities in the Third World only as a short-term profit-making activity. No attention is paid to preserving long-term productivity and fertility of soils. No attempts are made to integrate its activities with national agriculture or with the needs of peasants. Moreover, it encourages the peasants, in outgrower schemes, to grow cash crops for sale to the transnationals, which then export them. Some transnationals operating in Kenya are Del Monte, BAT (British American Tobacco), Brooke Bond, Lonrho, ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries), Unilever. There are hundreds of others which have become involved in every aspect of agriculture and agriculture-based industries. Much information is now available on their activities.8 s The social-economic-political factors that supply the latest information to the plantation sector deny it to the other system of agriculture found in the Third World-the peasant agriculture. Here the land is poorer, is fragmented, with generally less rainfall, and lacking systematic irrigation. International finance corporations and foreign banks control a large part of the finance of these peasant holdings. Peasants are under an ever present threat of being evicted from their small landholdings for non-repayment of generously given loans. They cannot afford the high-cost technologies (imported hybrid seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, machinery, etc.), yet given the present conditions in agriculture they cannot survive without them. At the same time, the agricultural information available to this peasant sector is minimal. Information is another 'high' technology they cannot afford. The national information services need to devise a well thought out information system that can supply the peasants with basic, simple, socio-economic and technical information that can be utilized without expensive inputs and which can have practical results. This is the challenge to Third World agricultural librarians. It is not accidental that agricultural information systems in the Third World have failed to provide relevant information for the agricultural community. The failure is caused by the whole system that uses Third World agricultural resources, not for the benefit of the working people, but for the satisfaction of the profit motive of transnationals. It will be possible to provide a people-orientated service only when the people themselves are directly involved in planning and implementing the service. CONCLUSION Agricultural libraries will be able to provide 'information for life' only when the real needs of peasants are understood. These are the basic material 53119 needs for survival: food, clothing and shelter. The information service must be able to help peasants and other rural and urban working people to satisfy these needs. This is the criterion on which its success will be judged. NOTES 1 'Pastoralist' refers to the nomadic people in East Africa who herd sheep, goats and camels. They live in semi-desert areas, and in Kenya this com prises the largest part of the country. Traditionally, their contribution to national development has been ignored. 2 Some further details of these two information systems as they developed in Kenya are given in my article: Rural information in Kenya. Information Development, 1985, 1 (3), 149-57. 3 These peasant-developed irrigation systems are described fully in the publications emanating from the District Socio-Economic Profile Pro ject (Kenya) of the Institute of African Studies, University of Nairobi, and are available at the Institute Library. 4 Some aspects of the role of leadership in libraries are discussed in my article Lessons in Kenyan librarianship, management and the library worker. Sauti ya wakutubi (formerly University of Nairobi Library Magazine), 1984 (1985), 4, iii-viii. 5 'Nationality' is a specific term much in use now to refer to what in colonial days was referred to as 'tribe'. It is more specific than 'people'; 40 or so nationalities comprise the people of Kenya. Thus there are the Gikuyu nationality, the Luo nationality, etc., each with its own land, culture and language. 6 This idea is further developed in the article cited in note 2 (above) and which is a complementary article to the present one. 7 An article entitled 'Economic enslavement' in New Outlook, November- December 1979, pp. 27-9, sums up this argument well. On using tech nology as a source of profit, the article says: The multinationals have lately been trying to utilize more, and on a broader scale, the new model of dependence, based on the scientific and technical superiority of the imperialist states over the developing countries. It is common knowledge that the multinationals skilfully apply the achievements of scientific and technical progress at their enterprises. And in the young states this technical and economic potential is utilized by the monopolies, mainly to boost profits from the exploitation of their natural resources and cheap manpower. 54120 8 The following are just a few of such sources: Kaplinsky, R. Readings on the multinational corporation in Kenya. Nairobi, Oxford University Press, 1979. See especially Steve Langdon's chapter: The multinational corporation in the Kenyan political economy. Munyakho, Dorothy Kweyu, and Kareithi, Peter. The pineapple industry debate. Daily Nation (Nairobi), Friday, 25 June 1982. The lure of easy money: tobacco brings destruction to Kenya's forests. Development and Cooperation, 1981, 1 (8-9). Lycatt, Andrew. Danger lurks in the green revolution. African Business, February 1982.</meta-value></custom-meta></custom-meta-wrap></article-meta></front><back><notes><p>1 'Pastoralist' refers to the nomadic people in East Africa who herd sheep, goats and camels. They live in semi-desert areas, and in Kenya this com prises the largest part of the country. Traditionally, their contribution to national development has been ignored.</p><p>2 Some further details of these two information systems as they developed in Kenya are given in my article: Rural information in Kenya. <italic>Information Development,</italic> 1985, 1 (3), 149-57.</p><p>3 These peasant-developed irrigation systems are described fully in the publications emanating from the District Socio-Economic Profile Pro ject (Kenya) of the Institute of African Studies, University of Nairobi, and are available at the Institute Library.</p><p>4 Some aspects of the role of leadership in libraries are discussed in my article Lessons in Kenyan librarianship, management and the library worker. <italic>Sauti ya wakutubi</italic> (formerly <italic>University of Nairobi Library Magazine),</italic> 1984 (1985), 4, iii-viii.</p><p>5 'Nationality' is a specific term much in use now to refer to what in colonial days was referred to as 'tribe'. It is more specific than 'people'; 40 or so nationalities comprise the people of Kenya. Thus there are the Gikuyu nationality, the Luo nationality, etc., each with its own land, culture and language.</p><p>6 This idea is further developed in the article cited in note 2 (above) and which is a complementary article to the present one.</p><p>7 An article entitled 'Economic enslavement' in <italic>New Outlook,</italic> November- December 1979, pp. 27-9, sums up this argument well. On using tech nology as a source of profit, the article says:</p><p>The multinationals have lately been trying to utilize more, and on a broader scale, the new model of dependence, based on the scientific and technical superiority of the imperialist states over the developing countries. It is common knowledge that the multinationals skilfully apply the achievements of scientific and technical progress at their enterprises. And in the young states this technical and economic potential is utilized by the monopolies, mainly to boost profits from the exploitation of their natural resources and cheap manpower.</p><p>8 The following are just a few of such sources:</p><p>Kaplinsky, R. <italic>Readings on the multinational corporation in Kenya.</italic> Nairobi, Oxford University Press, 1979. See especially Steve Langdon's chapter: The multinational corporation in the Kenyan political economy. Munyakho, Dorothy Kweyu, and Kareithi, Peter. The pineapple industry debate. <italic>Daily Nation</italic> (Nairobi), Friday, 25 June 1982.</p><p>The lure of easy money: tobacco brings destruction to Kenya's forests. <italic>Development and Cooperation,</italic> 1981, 1 (8-9).</p><p>Lycatt, Andrew. Danger lurks in the green revolution. <italic>African Business,</italic> February 1982.</p></notes></back></article></istex:document></istex:metadataXml><mods version="3.6"><titleInfo lang="en"><title>Agricultural information services in Kenya and Third World needs</title></titleInfo><titleInfo type="alternative" lang="en" contentType="CDATA"><title>Agricultural information services in Kenya and Third World needs</title></titleInfo><name type="personal"><namePart type="given">Shiraz</namePart><namePart type="family">Durrani</namePart></name><typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource><genre type="research-article" displayLabel="research-article"></genre><originInfo><publisher>Sage Publications</publisher><place><placeTerm type="text">Sage CA: Thousand Oaks, CA</placeTerm></place><dateIssued encoding="w3cdtf">1987-04</dateIssued><copyrightDate encoding="w3cdtf">1987</copyrightDate></originInfo><language><languageTerm type="code" authority="iso639-2b">eng</languageTerm><languageTerm type="code" authority="rfc3066">en</languageTerm></language><physicalDescription><internetMediaType>text/html</internetMediaType></physicalDescription><abstract lang="en">The article examines the failure of agricultural information systems in the Third World to provide relevant information in support of food pro duction. In many independent African countries (Kenya is taken as an example) there has been little qualitative change in the information services since colonial times; new technologies have been introduced which are more suitable for industrialized countries. Present-day agricultural information services are examined and solutions are suggested. However, a real solution cannot emerge until the social, economic and political foundations of society undergo a transformation which will allow the emergence of a people- orientated information service.</abstract><relatedItem type="host"><titleInfo><title>Journal of Librarianship and Information Science</title></titleInfo><genre type="journal">journal</genre><identifier type="ISSN">0961-0006</identifier><identifier type="eISSN">1741-6477</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID">LIS</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID-hwp">splis</identifier><part><date>1987</date><detail type="volume"><caption>vol.</caption><number>19</number></detail><detail type="issue"><caption>no.</caption><number>2</number></detail><extent unit="pages"><start>108</start><end>120</end></extent></part></relatedItem><identifier type="istex">DE6B35BFFD1067DDE87B45F6E6FB45A40663A772</identifier><identifier type="DOI">10.1177/096100068701900203</identifier><identifier type="ArticleID">10.1177_096100068701900203</identifier><recordInfo><recordContentSource>SAGE</recordContentSource></recordInfo></mods></metadata><serie></serie></istex></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
EXPLOR_STEP=$WICRI_ROOT/Wicri/Agronomie/explor/SisAgriV1/Data/Istex/Corpus
HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_STEP/biblio.hfd -nk 000460 | SxmlIndent | more
Ou
HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_AREA/Data/Istex/Corpus/biblio.hfd -nk 000460 | SxmlIndent | more
Pour mettre un lien sur cette page dans le réseau Wicri
{{Explor lien
|wiki= Wicri/Agronomie
|area= SisAgriV1
|flux= Istex
|étape= Corpus
|type= RBID
|clé= ISTEX:DE6B35BFFD1067DDE87B45F6E6FB45A40663A772
|texte= Agricultural information services in Kenya and Third World needs
}}
| This area was generated with Dilib version V0.6.28. |  |