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A contribution to the media discussion on behalf of our director, Anita Ingevall -----Original Message----- From: Anita Ingevall My name is Anita Ingevall and I am the director of ILEIA, Centre for Information on Low External Input and Sustainable Agriculture. Based on our experiences, I would like to stress the importance of what Paul Mundy is saying. There is no lack of initatives, projects and research, but the information about the results of all these efforts are mostly only known to the few individuals who have been directly involved. ILEIA has for more than 20 years been active in promoting agricultural options that build on local resources and are relevant and to small scale farmers in the South. We do this through exchange of relevant experiences through our quarterly magazine, the LEISA Magazine on Low External Input and Sustaianble Agriculture. In this magazine we ask professionals that are in direct contact with farmers to write about their experiences in a short and simple way. This means that we source material from all kind of actors and organisations, provided it is firmly grounded in a local context. The magazine deals with a specific theme each time, which makes it possible to give more examples and a fuller picture of that particular issue. At present, the global edition together with the regional editions (in four different languages) reaches 25 000 subscribers and, according to readers's surveys, an estimated 3-5 times as many readers. Most of the readers are field practitioners, either in government extension service or within NGO's/CBO's and most of them are based in the field. We have also done impact studies to try to find out how the readers use the information they get through the magazine. It turns out that: 1. The magazine is extremely appreciated, as it often the only source of information on relevant agricultural practises that is available. 2. It stimulates discussion between collegues as the magazine provides a different perspective on agriculture to the one provided by conventional agricultural training 3. Articles are often used as teaching material for trainings etc 4. The readers get new ideas from the magazine which they try to adapt to and use in their own context. 5. The magazine serves to motivate people as all the examples presented are results of real field experiences within similar contexts. Much more should be done in bringing the knowledge that actually does exist out to the people who need it. Which, by the way, is why we continue with our paper magazine. The people we want to reach are in most cases far from any internet connection (but the information is of course available on line as well, <http://www.ileia.org/> www.ileia.org ). Anita Ingevall Director ILEIA Centre for Information on Low External Input and Sustainable Agriculture PO Box 2067 3800 CB Amersfoort The Netherlands Tel +31 33 467 38 70 email: <address removed> Fax +31 33 463 24 10 Web site: www.ileia.org <http://www.ileia.org/>
Please visit dfid-agriculture-consultation.nri.org.