ICT Update is a bimonthly web magazine with an accompanying printed bulletin and an email newsletter featuring the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in agriculture in the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) regions. The June 2009 issue features the role of ICT in livelihoods in the ACP.

The editorial for this issue discusses feedback from farmers, particularly highlighting the need for new information added to the hints and tips of family and neighbours, due to changes in land over generations of farming. Radio has been a long-term and low-cost method of receiving information, but, in the past, it has not been interactive. The article reports on a project run by Farm Radio International, called the African Farm Radio Research Initiative (AFRRI), which is using MP3 players to record farmer interviews. The interview can generate a topic that is brought to an expert, then broadcast with the advice received, with which farmers can interact via mobile phone calls or short message service (SMS) texting.

In the Perspectives section, Roxanna Samii writes about her father's village where, after land reform, her father helped explain in the local dialect the meaning of reforms and suggested setting up a village council to enable community decisions. He also suggested that council members ask the local authority to disseminate information in such a way that it would be easily understood by the villagers. The lead farmer thanked him and expressed hope that "one day my children will be able to think and reason like you." Visiting the following generation of farmers in that village, Samii found that the children were "successful rural entrepreneurs and members of the village and city councils....[T]heir mobile phones kept ringing, and in each conversation they provided guidance and assistance to the caller in the local dialect." The lessons that Samii takes are:

1. Farmers found useful: mentors, radio/mobile phones, and local dialect information.
2. There is a need for ownership and appropriation of ICT by farmers from the outset of their introduction.
3. Development of local content should be: demand-driven, relevant information provided in the local language that will increase bargaining and purchasing power.
4.  Local language use supports cultural identity.
5. Appropriate technology means, for example, that if mobile phones are needed, providing computers is not necessarily useful.

Among the articles are the following:

• "Talking Back to Radio" - AFRRI has worked with with 25 radio stations in Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Tanzania, and Uganda to strengthen their programming for farmers. The article describes experimentation on one component of the initiative that involves working with the stations to test new technologies in the production of entertaining, informative, and interactive programmes, in collaboration with the listening groups.
• "The Centre of Information" - In 2005, the Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) project of the International Livestock Research Institute set up a series of information centres throughout Ethiopia. The centres, equipped with a variety of ICTs, provide farmers with information they need to develop new products and increase the yields of existing crops. The project is also attempting to improve the links between farmers and traders, creating opportunities for small-scale producers to sell to new markets, thereby increasing their incomes and helping to reduce poverty in the area. The project includes 28 knowledge centres that provide internet access and work on locally produced demonstration video projects for farmer-to-farmer training and provision of knowledge from the outside.
• "Data Collection Using Mobile Phones" - This article describes the Mobile Researcher, used to collect and upload into a database research in the field through mobile phone handsets.
• "Listening to Farmers" - According to this article, extension officers in the Pacific are working with farmers to produce DVDs, printed guides, and radio and TV programmes in order to strengthen rural economies. The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) recently launched the Development of Sustainable Agriculture in the Pacific (DSAP) project. The project works directly with farmers to identify and test methods for increasing farm production and trains extension workers to use ICTs to record, document, and replicate successful practices used throughout Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.

ICT Update on June 25 2009.