While everyone would like to see impact of new technologies at a wider scale, very few appreciate the need for adapting new technologies to meet the varied requirements of different socio-economic, bio-physical, organisational and institutional settings. The Ricecheck programme, which follows a procedure of extensionist-assisted farmer – group’s self- learning tries to address these concerns. Dr Shaik N Meera, Noel Magor, John Lacy and V. Ravindra Babu share their experiences here.
Dr
. Shaik N Meera is a Senior Scientist at the Directorate of Rice Research and Principal Investigator, Rice Knowledge Management Portal (RKMP). He also coordinates the Global Rice Science Partnership Programme (GRiSP Theme 6). His core strength is in effectively blending traditional and ICT enabled extension methods for showcasing the impact of extension (shaiknmeera@gmail.com)
Dr. Noel Magor is a Senior Scientist and Head, Training Centre, International Rice Research Institute, Los Banos, Philippines. He coordinates capacity building and partnership activities for supporting growth of rice sector.
Dr. Jon Lacy is a Ricecheck Consultant at the International Rice Research Institute and leads the John Lacy Co
nsulting at Finley, NSW, Australia.
Dr. V. Ravindra Babu is Project Director, Directorate of Rice Research, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad. He has been instrumental in promoting participatory breeding processes in rice research with special emphasis on bio-fortified rice (pdrice@drricar.org).
Rice check is a very good Extension Education Kit. To scale-up we may collaborate with Department of Agriculture.
The collaboration between farmers, researchers and extensionists is emphasized since the linkages among these is found weak and feedback from farmers to researchers and even to extension personnel is a rare phenomenon.Those who think on these issues often think how they can remedy the situation but answers are not readily available. In such a situation, this Blog has provided an answer in the form of Ricechek, which recognises farmer learning and values farmers knowledge as important as that of research and extension. As an extension method it is truly bottom-up, small group driven and requires superior facilitation skills. May be we need many more similar value added extension methods. Congratulations & thanks to Dr Shaik N Meera, Noel Magor, John Lacy and V. Ravindra Babu for sharing their experiences, which indeed is very useful.