Dr. Chowdhury Discussing Social Media and Extension

Dr. Ataharul Chowdhury was recently featured in Top Crop Manager where he discussed the scope of this project, including the next phase. Chowdhury describes the the efforts of this project as exploring how various stakeholders in the agricultural community can use social media as a tool for communication and exchange in a useful and practical way. The next phase of the project includes surveying individuals in the rural development and agricultural community to grasp in further detail how social media is being used at the moment.

Check back in the coming weeks for more updates.

University of Guelph feature here.
Top Crop Manager article (page 34) here.

New Research- Do Social Media Support 'Social' Change?

In a recent article published in the peer reviewed proceedings of the Canadian Communication Association Dr. Ataharul Chowdhury and Dr. Helen Hambly-Odame explore the topics of social media and social change. By critically analyzing the change processes in agriculture and rural development they found that having access to new media does not necessarily actively encourage social and collective change.

Find the article here.

Social Media Possibilities for Farmers

Get Farming Australia looks at the future of farming and sees social media as major tool that can be used by all famers to grow their business and learn. The article states that “in the United States, 76 percent of farmers between the ages of 18 and 35 use social media to share knowledge, connect with consumers and promote their business”. Still in many countries the possibilities that social media has for farmers is still not fully realized, but with over 1 billion people on Facebook and 554 million people using Twitter worldwide the trend is certainly engagement, knowledge sharing, and customer outreach.
See the full article here.

Learning a Language Through YouTube

Using social media networks to communicate is continually offering more ways to connect. This Mashable article explains that using social media networks not only to expand your virtual social networks, but also to learn a language as well.

Using YouTube can be a great way to gain the benefits of learning another language and being introduced to another culture through communication. YouTube allows for the casual viewer to gain a basic introduction or for the focused student to engage and begin to learn word and phrases.

The possibility of YouTube for learning is rooted in its ability to be accessible and flexible- it is free too!

Social Media Connects Rural Women in Australia

In this brief but telling article from Australia the new head of Australian Women in Agriculture uses the ease of connection with social media to stay in touch with other members. These new connections are hoped to foster more conversations across expansive geographies to provide support for women in rural areas.

RuralTube

Poor connectivity and population decline in rural Ontario present challenges to those who reside there as well as governments and other stakeholders. Before we can consider using social network technologies and mobile phone technologies to bridge the rural/urban or rural/global divide it would be prudent to discuss what it is that makes rural Ontario rural? Is it a lifestyle that is idealized or is it opportunity for economic growth? As reported on the Canadian Rural Research Network’s blog current affairs show, The Agenda, looked at these themes through interviews and a Google+ Hangout. 

Read the article and watch the videos here.

Investing in High-Speed Broadband in Rural Ontario

Social media and social networks require investment in infrastructure to accommodate growth in communication and education. In rural Ontario having access to high speed broadband networks will boost social connectivity between the small towns that populate rural areas and the global population beyond. At the moment, as Serge Lavoie writes on the Rural Ontario Institute’s blog, Ontario is lacking in investment in broadband networks that would potentially reverse the population drain currently happening in rural communities. 

Read the full article here.

Finland and Vodacom Tanzania Partner to Help Farmers

Allowing farmers to be able to access information through mobile phone use has become more important in a globalized economy. In Tanzinia the Finnish government, Finnish company Sibesonke, and mobile service provider Vodacom Tanzania have come together to help farmers access information through the use of their mobile phones. The Head of Brand and Communication at Vodacom Tanzania, Kelvin Twissa, explained that his company is always trying to find new ways to benefit its customers while Sibesonke CEO Uwe Schwarz described the partnership as a major step towards implementing their life-improving technology using social media and mobile phones in developing countries.Sibesonke is a spin-off of Nokia and created technology that allows interactive social networks to be used with inexpensive phones.

Read the full article here.

Radio and Emerging ICTs

In a recent post by Dr Helen Hambly Odame on the blog Mobilizing Knowledge for Sustainable Agriculture she discusses the established strengths of traditional broadcast radio and the potential to add value to this medium using social media networks and platforms.

Follow the link to read her post: Developing the Concept and Practice of Radio+.

Connecting Locally Across the Web in Rural Manitoba

In rural Manitoba Eric Boisjoli and his team created a Facebook-like social media networking tool using community pages to connect those in rural areas to the events and organizations close to home. As reported on CBC when Boisjoli moved to Ile des Chênes, Manitoba he found it difficult to find out what was happening in his rural community. This lead him to create Community-info with the goal of solving this issue.

Community-info lets its users freely browse the site to find events that are happening in their respective communities. On Facebook and Twitter a user has to be a friend or follower of someone or an organization to hear about their events, but on Community-info the user can browse the events in their communities themselves.

A Knowledge Sharing Platform for Agricultural Water Management

Climate change, water scarcity, and food security are all contemporary issues whose negative effects are sensed at a global scale. Connecting those with shared interests on these topics to find solutions is becoming even more critical.

Agriwaterpedia is a website that functions as a knowledge sharing platform in an attempt to connect researchers, practitioners, students, and others. By using agricultural water management as the basis for conversation Agriwaterpedia also engages with larger concerns like climate change and food security.

Agriwaterpedia promotes freely accessible knowledge and collects articles on the topic of agricultural water management in its online library for all to use.

Facebook is Getting the Conversation Going

Image source: http://goo.gl/2BDOVC

Facebook has recently announced that it will begin allowing its users to connect to broader conversations or trending topics using the hashtag, already in popular use on other social media platforms. An article in TechCrunch states that the hashtag on Facebook will involve capabilities such as “searching for hashtags, clicking on hashtags that come from other services, and writing posts directly from the hashtag feed”.

With the new hashtag feature introduced on Facebook its users may be able to use the social media site more like Twitter is used. On Twitter, using hashtags, you have the ability to begin conversations or even include yourself in conversations on topics far beyond your conventional social group. The result of this is, at the users discretion, they have a voice in either broad topics or niche topics where without the hashtag they would not have this option so easily available to them.

The Past and the Pending

Screen capture of the OMAFRA website in July 1997.

As the project looks to establish the current and future use of social media tools in the agriculture community it may be useful to see how digital communication in this context has progressed over time. By using the Internet Archive’s “Wayback Machine” we can view the OMAFRA website as it looked in July 1997 and view it beside its current incarnation in July 2013 and compare how its functionality and aesthetics have changed over 16 years.

It may be interesting to note that the basic function of the website has maintained its usefulness, however new ways to engage have emerged. There is now a link to a Twitter account and a link to subscribe to email updates while photos and videos are embedded on the home page. The telephone number has changed though!

Using the Internet to Connect Potato Growers

Recently Dr Chowdhury was quoted in in an article about the current and future social media use amongst potato farmers. The article was published in the Top Crop Manager/Potatoes in Canada - a widely circulated crop magazine which focuses on the needs of potato growers in Canada.

The need for communication amongst potato growers is an integral part of a successful agriculture operation, but it is claimed that the 'use of digital media, especially social networking media is only a recent development in the industry'. The article states that the Potato Variety Management Institute (PVMI), based out of Oregon in the United States, launched an online forum in 2012 for its users to exchange thoughts related to the industry. PVMI is tracking the use of the forum and reports promising initial numbers with usage slowly growing. Also, in 2012 the United Potato Growers of Canada (UPGC) updated their website and began tracking the number of hits it receives. In the article Kevin MacIsaac, the UPGC general manager, says that he is unsure to what degree potato growers are using internet-based communication tools, but does see the potential benefits of engaging through Twitter and YouTube in the future. He also sees growing use of smartphones in the industry and the potential use of smartphone apps to keep a close eye on market prices- something that other agricultural sectors, he says, are ahead on.

Social media can be a great way to actively locate and share information, but how will these digital tools be used for communication in the agricultural sectors? How are people in agriculture using social media right now? What is the digital literacy level of agricultural producers? What is the future of social media use in agriculture? How do the media influence learning among different actors? What is the role of social capital/relationship building? In an age where many aspects of our daily lives and workflow are transitioning to an online and virtual format these are important questions to ask.