Why invest in knowledge sharing about

beekeeping?

Ghent 29/05/2007

Assumptions

• Networks contribute to research for development (not only among universities, but also research institutes and NGO's which use field data for policy advisory research) ;

• Networks offer tertiary education institutes in agriculture practical ways to promote a sustained endogenously driven knowledge sharing and innovation in agriculture and natural resources management.

• Honey Care Africa is an innovative, rapidly expanding Kenyan social enterprise established expressly to increase the income of rural farmers.

• The organization was started back in 1998 by Wilson Mwangi and Samson Kago. They initiated the project after looking unsuccessfully for jobs soon after their university education. Their membership has increased steadily over the years to ten members in total. Honey Care Africa, was named the top small-to medium-sized business in Africa on 20 October 2005.

• To date, Honey Care has doubled the income of several thousand small scale farmers through its "Money for Honey" program, which trains them in commercial beekeeping and then buys their honey at a guaranteed price. Honey Care then packages and sells the highest quality African honey.

• http://www.honeycareafrica.com/

Prior to commencement of any beekeeping project, Honey Care conducts a preliminary site evaluation of the

proposed project site to assess the viability of financing each venture

• Honey Care has established a number of very successful bee keeping projects, working closely with a number of carefully selected and Non-Governmental and International Organizations to promote small holder bee keeping and honey production in various regions of the country.

• All hives are provided either on

a loan or cost-sharing basis.

Who is involved in the knowledge sharing ?

International/multinational

companies

Local, regional, and

national merchants

Aid agencies

Government officials

Researchers: social scientists

Researchers: Biologists/

Agricultural sciences

NGOs

Rural and urban producers

Knowledge sharing

in beekeeping

Impediments and innovations for knowledge sharing between :

• Rural and urban honey producers

• NGOs• Researchers: biologists• Researchers: social scientists• Government officials• Aid agencies• Local, regional, and national

merchants• International/multinational

companies

Knowledge gaps and the need for an integrated development approachRural and urban honey producers

Impediments to KS Innovations for KS

Few opportunities to meet with producers from other associations. Poor infrastructure in rural areas complicates exchange of goods and information. Little opportunity to communicate with donors and government officials. Market information is hard to access, particularly for illiterate rural women.

NGOs provide capacity building assistance and market information to producers.NGOs act as ‘go-between’ producer associations.Producer cooperative certification increases their visibility.NGO-led literacy-training programs improve the literacy of rural actors.

NGOs

Impediments to KS Innovations for KS Fail to exchange project

information with government. Competitive knowledge hoarding

culture such that inter-NGO communication is limited.

Reluctance to describe project difficulties.

Lack of holistic view of the honey commodity chain hinders integrated development approach.

Short-term funding does not encourage long-term vision.

Not rewarded for staying afloat of scientific findings in the beekeeping sector.

Little access to published sources, poor infrastructure, inadequate IT equipment.

Play key role in transferring market information to producers. Successfully shortened chain of middle traders. Facilitate knowledge sharing between cooperatives. Convey information on honey suppliers to importers.

Researchers: biologists

Impediments to KS Innovations for KS

Limited funding available. Importance of their research

is under recognized among other actors in the honey sector.

Scientific jargon and language of publication (English) make findings difficult to communicate to non-scientists regionally.

Local publications not indexed and inaccessible elsewhere.

State of libraries, poor infrastructure, inadequate IT equipment.

Central database of biophysical beekeeping attributes.Organized network and conferences for beekeepers.

Researchers: social scientists

Impediments to KS Innovations for KS

Lack of holistic view of the honey commodity chain (cosmetics, drugs, food) hinders integrated development approach.

State of libraries, poor infrastructure, inadequate IT equipment.

Organized network and conferences for beekeepers.

Government officialsImpediments to KS Innovations for KS

Fail to exchange project information with NGOs.

Lack of holistic view of the honey commodity chain.

Not rewarded for staying afloat of scientific findings in the beekeeping and honey transformation and conservation sector.

Documents and personnel are split between different ministries and locales.

No database of government documents or publicly available list of resource people.

Little access to published sources, poor infrastructure, inadequate IT equipment.

Little coordination between countries.

Convey marketing and commercial information to producers and importers upon demand.

Aid agencies

Impediments to KS Innovations for KS

Lack of holistic view hinders integrated development approach.

Funding structure renders NGOs competitive rather than cooperative, thereby diminishing knowledge sharing incentives.

Fund NGOs in the honey production, conservation and transformation sector, including those whose mission is to create knowledge networks.

Local, regional, and national merchants

Impediments to KS Innovations for KS

Compete for markets. Poor communication

infrastructure. Lack production

statistics

List of honey suppliers on website.NGOs provide information on honey suppliers to local merchants.Facilitate access to market information.Participation in regional events increases supplier visibility.

International/multinational companies

Impediments to KS Innovations for KS

Competitive market. Limited information

about the honey market available on the Internet.

Poor communication infrastructure in Africa limits international business exchanges.

Lack production statistics.

List of honey suppliers on website. NGOs provide information on honey suppliers to importers and on international standards to producers. Producer certification increases their international visibility. Participation in international events increases supplier visibility.

Some findings

• Poor communication and networking between honey producers and other stakeholders persists.

• Constraints to sharing knowledge about beekeeping are numerous, and comprise the lack of global vision of the sector, key knowledge gaps, geographical distance, infrastructure and budgetary considerations, as well as socio-cultural barriers to knowledge sharing between organizations.

So what ?• Effective knowledge sharing in the beekeeping and honey

production sector would encourage the application of extant knowledge about the resource and generate new knowledge through the cross-fertilization of ideas.

• In turn, this would favour the optimal development and long-term sustainability of this key nutritional and economic resource.

How can ICT improve KS?• Effective knowledge sharing

in the beekeeping and honey production sector can be encouraged through the use of collaborative communication tools

• There are a number of innovative ways in which ICT can augment collaborative work.

• One of them is the use of a wiki

What is a wiki ?

Wiki features• Easy to create websites• Project development with peer review • Group authoring • Track a group project

• Using a wiki “pulls” the group members together to build and edit the document on a wiki page, which strengthens the community within the group,

• Allows group members with overlapping or similar ideas to see and collaboratively build on each other’s work.

• Allows all group members immediate, equal access to the most recent version of the document.

Yes but can I learn to use it?

You can learn to use a wiki in 30-60 min.

There are several free sources for wikis.

What’s important about a wiki?

• Collaboration

• Hyperlinks

Wikis as Information Sources

What do you know about Wikipedia?

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is:

• A free encyclopedia

• Multilingual

• Web-based

• Written collaboratively by volunteers

• Most articles can be changed by anyone.

Wikipedia

• The service now totals 6 million articles in 200 languages, 150 times the size of any print equivalent and all for free. (but only 350 articles have been posted by the 17.5 million people in the world that speak Amharic).

• It thrives, because "nobody knows everything but everyone knows something."

• The read-write Internet is possible because of four elements in the wikipedia equation: software, community, neutrality and freedom.

Closing remarks

• Wikis need– Community– Planning and management

• Wikis suit information that– needs continual irregular updates by many

users– cannot usefully be arranged into a strong

hierarchy– requires consensus

Blogs wikis and podcasts: good luck!