Sharing knowledge and innovation with and from family farmers through a community knowledge broker network and the TECA platform in Uganda

Access to technical information and practices to enable family farmers to improve their productivity is one of the key factors that can contribute to their development in addition to the development of their communities. This paper presents a case study on the role that online networks and knowledge bases play to facilitate the sharing of agricultural technologies and practices with family famers in Uganda, helping them to meet the challenges faced in the field and improving their livelihoods. Through a partnership between the Grameen Foundation and FAO, a knowledge base of farmer validated technologies and practices in agriculture, livestock, fisheries and forestry (TECA) from FAO and its partner organizations is used to repackage information and share it through mobile phones and a network of community knowledge brokers with small farmers. The same platform is used for sharing documented farmer practices with an online community of practitioners, where they candiscuss the practices can take place? and, through feedback from the online forum, help to further improve the documentation. Welldocumented practices are then included in the TECA knowledge base to be shared with a wider community working with smallholders. The case of TECA stands out because it contains very practical information presented in non-academic language and using multimedia (video, audio, images and text) that can be easily understood by farmers and those providing advisory services to them. The Grameen Foundation in Uganda uses information from TECA to reach more than 254,385 farmers via smart phone and a network of peer advisors. About 45 percent of the information shared is from TECAʹs knowledge base. This paper will illustrate the collaboration and highlight a few cases where farmers have taken initiative to improve their productivity and livelihoods through application of new knowledge shared through this joint effort.