The Indo-UK Advanced Technology Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks, Systems and Services (IUATC) is trying to address the future challenges identified by the UK Government under the Digital Economy Theme and the Department of Science and Technology in India. One such area in rural India where Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) networks can have a major impact is Agri...

ICTs are changing all the spheres of human lives. Hence, it is a popular belief that, agricultural extension also no exception to this. It is also expected that the ICT led extension systems are going to act as a key agent for changing agrarian situation and farmers’ lives by improving access to information and sharing knowledge. Hence, renewed enthusiasm to use new ICTs for agricultural adviso...

Public-sector scientists have a mandate to independently evaluate agricultural products available to American farmers on the open market, whereas the companies that sell the products must protect their intellectual property.  However, as a consequence of the latter concern, public scientists currently are prohibited by industry-imposed restrictions from conducting research on commercialized tra...

There are several organizations extensively using modern information technology in India to facilitate better communication between researchers, extension workers and their farmer clients to transfer technologies and information more cost effectively. But, many of these initiatives are focused on delivering generic information rather than providing the farm plot or crop specific advisories pert...

Growing demand for agricultural commodities is causing the expansion of agricultural frontiers onto native vegetation worldwide. Agribusiness companies linking these frontiers to distant spaces of consumption through global commodity chains increasingly make zero-deforestation pledges. However, production and land conversion are often carried out by less-visible local and regional actors that a...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pricing performance of agricultural market advisory services in hogs. Pricing recommendations are available for all quarters from the beginning of 1995 through the end of 2001. The results show that average differences between advisory programs and market benchmarks are small in nominal terms for all three benchmarks, -$0.41/cwt., $0.00/cwt. and -...