LEARN IT PROJECT
Improving Poor Farmers'
Livelihood through Rice Information Technology
About the Project
Prek Leap
National School of Agriculture (PNSA) has potential in contribution to
improve rural livelihood in Cambodia
through improving rice production and other associated farming. The concept
on the use of information technology to facilitate in the contribution
process is very appropriate for PNSA strategy on building agricultural
human resource capacity and transferring agricultural knowledge and
technology.
PNSA has a mechanism and partnership project to be
cooperated in a work plan for implementation of the ADB ICT project. The
mechanism has coordinated by Division of Continuing Education through the PNSA Training Centers joint force with PNSA-Partner
projects such as KUSANONE (Grassroots Project of Japan), Fishery and Marine
Institute of Memorial University, Canada (Sustainable Rice-Fish
Integration), SEILA program, Department of Agriculture (DoA),
Provincial Department of Agriculture (PDA) etc. Each of the components has
its strategies that can be very well integrated into the project work plan.
The Training Center (PNSA_TC) plays very critical roles in
training and extension of the agricultural knowledge and technology there
are around 30 to 40 trainings per year, were conducted by PNSA_TC. The
center has a goal to work with farmers at rural communities in improving
agricultural productivity and commodities. The center has developed the
training curriculum that focuses on the practical and non-formal training
methodology for farmers who can hardly read and write. Producing different
kinds of audiovisual aids for different groups of farmers will greatly help
to spread out of agricultural knowledge. Other hand, the center takes
charge of providing support to education and training activities on campus
and also works in outreach program. PNSA_TC has built a website in 2003
that is used as gateway to communicate its activities to its stakeholders
and the world. Although, the website has limitation of data for knowledge
transformation, it is ready to provide support on data store and webpage
links. However, PNSA has little opportunity to use this technology for the
training and education.
The PNSA_TC is also an information resource which stores
specialized printed materials on agriculture and related fields and
science. The PNSA_TC provides fundamental knowledge based on theory and
concept. The initiative to build multimedia collections on practical
knowledge from fields for the PNSA_TC will contribute significantly to
building agricultural human resource capacity in Cambodia.
Objectives
Overarching goal of the project on improving farmers’
livelihood through rice information technology is built and achieved on
four objectives to be achieved by PNSA in the next 2 ½ years. These
objectives support the education, training, extension agency and PNSA
Partnership for Development in Cambodia:
1 Building multimedia
collection on rice knowledge information and other related fields and
sciences at PNSA_TC
2 Providing internet access
to websites of LEARN-IT members and other rice knowledge resources and
institutions
3 Joint partnership
with other institutions for capacity building of the human resources on
rice production and related fields.
4 Nurturing
relationship and network with individual, stakeholders and related rice
institutions for extension activities.
