The Rise and Stall of agLe@rn

Author : Robert T. Raab
Date added : 2003-09-26

Brief Project Background

The Beginning

The original idea for the establishment of an initiative focused on promoting the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices in Asia was conceived of by a group of forward thinking individuals representing the interests of the international crop sciences industry in the Asia-Pacific region. The group was well aware that their clients, Asian farmers, were already one of the poorest and most marginalized sectors of society and that they were under increasing pressure from a number of sources. The region’s population was rising rapidly resulting in increased demand for food and fiber. Asian consumers were becoming more affluent and demanding higher quality and more choice. Globalization meant that Asia’s farmers were in competition with other farmers around the world to sell in the marketplace and stay in business. Price supports, commodity protection programs, and government marketing programs were being phased out and there was an obvious reduction in government research and extension services. To further complicate the situation, much of the natural resource base on which Asian agriculture depended was under threat. Large areas of the most fertile agricultural land were, and still are, being converted to non-agricultural uses through industrialization and urbanization. What remained was threatened by degradation from erosion, nutrient mining, water logging and salinisation. Closer to home, crop protection products were being used irresponsibly resulting in economic losses, environmental problems and threats to human heath - all of which contributed to a widespread negative impression of the crop science industry. Clearly something had to be done and it was felt to be in the best interests of this industry to rise to the challenge. The question was how.

In a series of meetings held during 2000 and after considerable deliberation, the group came to several conclusions. One was that the approach offering the best chance of success would involve education and increasing farmer access to information and knowledge. The second key characteristic of the approach decided upon was that it should take advantage of the growing availability of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The final component of the design was the definition of the target audience. Although it was Asia’s farmers that they hoped to reach with their ICT-enabled educational efforts, it was realized that targeting this group directly was next to impossible. Very few farmers had access to computers and the Internet and very little knowledge on how to use these new tools, there were too many different languages spoken and there were just too many small farmers that needed to be reached.

For these reasons it was decided to focus on reaching “knowledge intermediaries” - agricultural professionals and educators in the region with a responsibility for educating agricultural students and/or end users in rural communities. It felt that they could be a strong force for reaching farmers with new information and knowledge but that many of them were no more aware of the options and sustainable agriculture practices than the farmers who they were responsible for helping. “Knowledge Intermediaries” were therefore chosen as a logical and practical leverage point.

During these deliberations, an organization with which informal discussions had been going on officially joined the effort. Worldview International Foundation, an international NGO with hands-on experience and knowledge of communication and media activities for development, agreed to contribute to the endeavor. Everything was thus ready for the start of the Asia Pacific Regional Technology Centre. It would be charged with developing and implementing an eLearning program that targeted the continuing educational needs of underserved agricultural professionals and educators in the region. This initiative would soon be known as agLe@rn.

The Rise of agLe@rn

APRTC was “born” in late January 2001 with the setting up of an office in Bangkok, Thailand. Two core staff were contracted and the basic necessary physical infrastructure acquired. The vision and mission of the APRTC were passed on to the new staff and they were told that they could expect support for an initial period of 3 years after which time the results and impact of the program would be critically evaluated. APRTC was expected to make every effort to become independent and self-supporting within this timeframe.

One of the first activities was the development of a 3 year business plan. This document detailed the approach to be taken and the assumptions on which the future sustainability of the effort would depend. In order to achieve the key target of independence within the 3 year time limit a strategy was formulated characterized by 4 primary thrusts:

1. develop innovative, high-quality, independent, cost-effective and useful eLearning program targeting agricultural professionals and focused on promoting sustainable agriculture and natural resource management;
2. establish partnerships with other organizations in the region and elsewhere who could complement APRTC’s strengths and help achieve its goals;
3. intense marketing among individual crop science industry companies to make them aware of the learning opportunities being made available and convince them of the benefits associated with supporting the participation of their staff;
4. dialogue with development agencies, donors and projects working to promote sustainable natural resource management and encourage them to review and endorse APRTC’s courses and support the involvement of their project staff and collaborators.

At the time of the writing of this story and almost 3 years since APRTC’s inception, considerable progress appears to have been made. Within the first year of operation, APRTC had its own domain name, an associated Website, a robust dedicated Internet connection, minimal but sufficient hardware and software resources and a solid and growing network of widely dispersed human resources involved in programming, course design, delivery, management and facilitation. agLe@rn courses were being developed and delivered in partnership with a range of institutions and individuals. The first batch of agLe@rn alumni “graduated” in May 2001 and APRTC was legally registered and recognized as a non-profit - 501(c)(3) corporation in the United States on August August 7, 2001.

All agLe@rn courses were designed to be taught entirely online. Requirements for students were simple. They needed to have an interest in the topic, basic English proficiency, access to a reasonably up-to-date computer with an Internet browser installed, a connection to the Internet (even a dial-up connection), and an email and Internet account. They had to be prepared to invest approximately 5 hours per week over the time a course was being offered. Most courses lasted for 6 weeks.

agLe@rn courses were designed with great attention to the best practices in online education. They were objective, impartial and science based. Interaction was a fundamental characteristic. Considerable effort was made to ensure that participants were encouraged to interact extensively - with the course facilitators, with each other and with the materials themselves. They were also designed so that they could be used as either a comprehensive reference tool or as part of a structured learning exercise. All course material was declared public domain and made freely available to anyone anywhere with an Internet connected computer. Registered learners had the added benefits associated with the opportunity to receive advice and guidance from experienced course facilitators and peers. Given that the participants targeted were largely working adults with little flexibility in their schedules, all course interaction was asynchronous.

The first agLe@rn course offered was entitled “Digital Literacy for Agricultural Professionals”. This course, “Diglit” for short, was seen as an essential prerequisite for inexperienced online learners who wanted to take advantage of more technical online courses on various aspects of sustainable natural resource management. It was designed to improve course participants' ability to access and take advantage of networked computer resources and to use and understand information as presented by computers.

Diglit was followed in quick succession by 2 technical courses - “Responsible Use of Pesticides” and “Introduction to Integrated Pest Management“. Both of these were seen as key areas for sustainable agriculture with IPM being a cornerstone of this approach and responsible use a key and often neglected component.

In the second year, the first 3 courses were extensively modified based on feedback from participants, observers and facilitators and regular offerings were scheduled. Work also began on several additional titles - still primarily focused on the area of environmentally friendly and responsible pest management. These dealt with 3 key Asian agricultural commodities - Vegetables, Cotton and Rice. “Cotton IPM” was offered for the first time on June 24, 2002 closely followed by “Basics of Vegetable IPM” on November 4, 2002 and then “Rice IPM” early in 2003.

APRTC’s latest course “Integrated Soil Fertility Management” was piloted in mid 2003 and marked the beginning of an effort to broaden agLe@rn beyond crop protection and into other key areas of sustainable agriculture and natural resource management. Several courses in other areas are in the planning stage.

Of course, APRTC did not forget about the need to “market” its work and courses to clients and potential supporters. One approach was to participate in as many relevant regional meetings and conferences as possible. The first APRTC paper was presented at the 1st SEAMEO Education Congress in Bangkok, Thailand, March 2001. Since then, APRTC representatives have prepared and presented papers on eLearning and ICT application in sustainable agricultural development at over 20 regional and international professional conferences, crop management company meetings and technical conferences. Perhaps the most well known of these gatherings was the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg 26 August to 4 September 2002. At this meeting, agLe@rn was one of about 250 partnership initiatives successfully submitted.

Results

The Results

The results of all of APRTC’s efforts to date are rather mixed. While it appears that considerable progress has been demonstrated in some areas, in others the results are quite disappointing. First the good news.

The 7 online courses have been very well received by agricultural professionals in some 19 countries in Asia and interest is growing in Africa and Latin America. In the next 3 months, APRTC will have successfully conducted 33 offerings of these courses and close to 900 learning opportunities will have been taken advantage of. True to the spirit of the original vision, participants have come from a wide range of backgrounds and agricultural sectors. While academics are the most likely individuals to take an agLe@rn course (40%), there has been a good response from government research and extension personnel (20%), employees of private sector crop sciences companies (24%) and NGO’s (13%). All indications are that alumni are quite pleased with the courses and their online experiences. One sign of their appreciation is that, after going through their first course, almost 1 in 4 go on to take a second or even third one.

In an effort to better document student satisfaction and get some indication of impact, APRTC just recently completed a survey of its alumni. Specific areas of interest were related to participants’ assessment of the usefulness of the information they gained in the courses, what they did with what they learned, whether or not they were using agLe@rn materials in their own teaching and training activities, who and how many others they share agLe@rn knowledge with, and if there are any major differences in the opinions and behavior of participants depending on the sector in which they are employed.

The results? Over 90 percent of the survey respondents indicated that they gained very much or much knowledge and that what they gained was worth the effort. Most (83%) were also using agLe@rn course materials and references and incorporating them in their own teaching and training activities. With only one exception, all respondents indicated that they had passed on something of what they learned in the courses to colleagues, students and/or farmers. A typical alumnus shared agLe@rn knowledge with an average of 74 other people and those who took earlier courses with many more.

It thus appears that agLe@rn is providing a valuable and welcome educational service to agricultural knowledge intermediaries around the world and is starting to have an impact on the ultimate target audience - developing country farmers. Alumni indicate that they have increased their skills and knowledge in terms of both general computer literacy as well as in knowledge related to sustainable natural resource management and are sharing it widely. As one NGO respondent from India put it,

"Very useful courses for increasing competence in accessing information easily and learning recent technologies and their application through effective dissemination methods. Selection of areas of topical interest is very advantageous for Agricultural scientists, Extension workers, students and progressive farmers. The organization deserves strengthening and for increasing/expanding their activities in human resource development."

APRTC has also had considerable success in getting others to contribute talent and brains to its educational program. The first academic institution to formally enter into a partnership agreement to collaborate with APRTC on course delivery was India’s Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. Subsequent to this, APRTC initiated discussions with several other universities culminating in similar formal agreements with the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore and Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology. Other agreements are currently under consideration by the University of the Philippines Los Banos, Kasetsart University in Thailand and Punjab Agricultural University in India. A select and dedicated group of faculty from all of these institutions has slowly developed into an integral, extremely valuable and valued resource for the courses and the course participants. A very important non-academic partnership was also established with the Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) - an association established in 1997 to promote advanced research in networking technologies and the development of high-performance computer network applications. Through affiliation in APAN, APRTC had access to a regional network of IT professionals as well as to advanced networking and Web hosting services provided by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Information Network (MAFFIN).

Additional partnerships with research oriented content providers were also pursued. APRTC’s most recent partnership was signed with IFDC, an International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development. IFDC was a major contributor to the agLe@rn course on “Integrated Soil Fertility Management”.

Now the bad news. While APRTC and its agLe@rn courses were popular with students and partner institutions it was obviously not popular with the donor and development communities or even with the human resource departments of the crop science industry companies. As a result, there is every indication that funding to continue agLe@rn will no longer be available after the end of the year. The commitment of its original supporters has weakened and, if others do not step in and help with funding or the support of students, they will no longer support APRTC’s operations or continue their contributions to the agLe@rn scholarship fund. To date, even after considerable effort, no other sources of support have been found.

Lessons

What went wrong?

So. What did APRTC do wrong? What, if anything, can be learned from its experience? While others may have different ideas and insights into the situation it might be worthwhile to try and analyze APRTC’s stall from the perspective of those most closely involved in its design and implementation. Hopefully this will help other initiatives and their supporters avoid similar fates. Below are some of these impressions based on various hints, suppositions and even some confidential feedback from various sources associated with the effort.

In APRTC’s case, it appears that several of the original assumptions made at the start of the effort were incorrect. These were that the individual crop science industry companies would welcome the availability of these courses, encourage their employees to participate and support their participation; that development projects would be quick to realize the advantages of “outsourcing” the training components of their projects to a cost-effective and high quality alternative; and that the rhetoric of the major donors about their commitment to supporting innovative civil society organizations involved in promoting natural resource management could be believed.

Suppositions about specific factors that may have led to the failure of these assumptions are listed below.

1. Priorities change as personnel change.
Almost all of the original industry individuals associated with conceptualising and making funds available for establishing APRTC moved on to other jobs and responsibilities. They were replaced by others who were not part of the original discussions and who had no real stake in seeing it succeed. The newcomers had new ideas and objectives of their own and they were not enthusiastic about continuing to support the brainchild of their predecessors.

2. Disconnect between corporate strategic and implementation levels.
There was always a good understanding of the desirability of having better educated farmers with knowledge about sustainable agricultural practices at the more senior levels of the companies who supported APRTC’s development. It clearly made good business sense to empower and work to enrich your clients. But, further down the hierarchy in these companies the desirability of this approach was not nearly as clear. At the sales level, for example, there was a concern that widespread adoption of much of what the courses presented would negatively affect sales. Integrated Pest Management was a key focus of APRTC’s courses and this approach maintains that prevention is better than cure. As a result, individuals whose livelihood depends on selling cures naturally feel threatened.

3. Distrust of the International Crop Sciences Industry.
An obvious contributing factor to the reluctance of other supporters to come on board was the fact that APRTC had been sponsored by an industry that many perceived to be dangerous and not really concerned about environmental issues or sustainable development. That this industry could actually be involved in something beneficial to farmers, the environment and society was regarded with deep suspicion. Many organizations exhibited a marked reluctance to be seen as involved with anything associated with this industry.

4. Reluctance of donors to support new, innovative multilateral efforts.
Another factor that may have discouraged wider support is probably a result of APRTC’s status as a small, new, innovative, civil society organization with a regional and even global mandate. APRTC had only been in existence for a short time and did not have the solid relationships of more established organizations. Also, its approach was unique and relatively unproven even though initial results were promising. That it was an NGO with no connection with any national government or focus on a particular country seems to have put off potential supporters. Donors seem to prefer working with government agencies or organizations closely aligned with national efforts.

5. Lack of available funding for independent development efforts.
While it seems that there are substantial sums of money available for supporting ICT-enhanced projects it is actually quite difficult to find out who has control of these funds and how to access them. Most of the more substantial grants seem to go to the larger agencies where it is used to support their own operations and not necessarily for helping others. What money is available for the smaller players is usually earmarked for very small, country or even village level pilot projects and more seems to be available for research projects rather than ongoing, independent development efforts.

6. Perception of agLe@rn as competition.
APRTC felt that one its major strengths was that it offered high quality, cost effective training for both the crop science industry and development efforts. Unfortunately, most of these already had well established training departments and contractors in charge of staff development and training. That they were not pleased to see APRTC on the scene is quite understandable.

To sum it up, perhaps the key lesson from all this is that while it may be relatively easy to start an ICT project, it is extremely difficult to sustain one. In the words of Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations,

“Our efforts must be sustained over the long term. In recent years, we have witnessed a number of very promising initiatives that, regrettably, did not live up to expectations. The reasons were diverse, but one of the principal causes was insufficient long-term commitment on the part of initiators and sponsors.”

Development Impacts

The Moral of the Story

Given the current bleak outlook for agLe@rn and APRTC, it is difficult to think about what could have been and what impact it could have had. What if it was able to continue offering courses? What if some of the major development agencies endorsed these learning opportunities and promoted them among their clients? What if development projects focused on promoting sustainable agriculture started to sponsor project personnel? What if more donors were convinced to contribute to the scholarship fund?

While there are questions that cannot be realistically answered, it may be useful to speculate. Several years ago, an FAO study synthesized the outcomes of a series of expert consultations, regional round table discussions and staff analyses and concluded that, “Poor quality of training of agricultural professionals, technicians and producers has been identified as part of the global food security problem”. Another FAO study showed that “Although extension staff numbers are high in many developing countries, staff quality is often low. 40 percent of extension personnel had only a secondary school education, and another 33 percent with an intermediate diploma or certificate”.

APRTC’s primary goal was to address this fundamental problem and, as far as it went, it appears to have at least proven that its approach works. It has shown that ICT-enhanced learning can effectively overcome many of the traditional physical and financial barriers that prevent agricultural researchers, technicians, farmers and others from sharing information and competence. Empowering “knowledge intermediaries” with a better understanding of the practices associated with sustainable natural resource management, community development strategies and sustainable food production is currently recognized as an key objective for development efforts. A recently published study seems to support these views. It concluded that, “ICTs are proving their value in helping to deliver information to and from intermediary information providers such as universities, government offices, telecenters, NGOs and libraries. Some of the most successful ICT for development projects are focused on supporting the work of intermediaries who are relaying information to and from farmers and others at the grassroots level who do not themselves have access to the technology”.
An important spillover of this approach should also be recognized. Participants involved in international eLearning programs gain much more than the subject matter knowledge contained in the lessons. They also become networked with other development professionals and have greater access to experience, knowledge and information from around the world. English communication skills are strengthened which also greatly expands the pool of global knowledge which can be tapped. Even based on this relatively short experience, it appears that agLe@rn alumni continue to network electronically, share ideas and information and use digital resources to improve their job performance long after courses officially end.

Perhaps even more important, participating in eLearning courses makes students more comfortable with the new technologies that the future economy depends on. As one development worker in Asia puts it, “A key advantage to using technology for education is that the use of technology is in itself a crucial education. Computers and the Internet are particularly suited for self-learning and for many other uses. So, for example, by learning to use the Internet to take a course in history, the student also learns language and Internet skills that will be valuable for finding international markets for local handicrafts or getting the latest crop prices on world markets.”

Maybe the moral of this story is simply that APRTC was ahead of its time. Maybe the world wasn’t ready to accept that a small independent NGO could do so much with so little by leveraging information and communication technologies and the intellectual capital available in developing countries themselves. Maybe, in the coming months and years, its model may become more acceptable and its original assumptions may be borne out. Those still involved with and committed to the effort certainly hope this to be the case. The title of this story is “The Rise and Stall of agLe@rn” and not the “Rise and Fall”. The intellectual property is intact and is expected to remain available. APRTC’s infrastructure is safe on a server in Japan. It has a large number of satisfied alumni who can attest to its good work. It has a large, dispersed faculty who know the strengths of its approach and have developed considerable skills delivering eLearning. What’s next? Time will tell.

Project Information

Organisation : Asia Pacific Regional Technology Centre
URL : http://www.aprtc.org
Total budget in US$ : 160,000 per anum
Country of activity: Thailand [TH]

Are there any partners involved : CropLife International - http://www.croplife.org
CropLife Asia - http://www.croplifeasia.org/
Worldview International Foundation (WIF) - http://www.wifoundation.org/wif.html
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) - http://dbs.tn.nic.in/tnau/
University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore (UAS-B) - http://uasbng.kar.nic.in/Default.htm
Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture & Technology (GBPUAT) - http://www.gbpuat.ac.in/
International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) - http://www.ifdc.org
ITC's e-Choupal Initiative - http://www.itcibd.com/e-choupal1.asp
Asia-Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) - http://apan.net

What is partners role?: APRTC’s agLe@rn program is based on partnerships. The original starting capital was donated by the international crop sciences industry through their regional and international representatives. The international NGO Worldview International provides a major link to agricultural development NGO's working in the Asia-Pacific region and is a guiding force in setting APRTC's priorities and policies. Several developing and developed country agricultural universities have contributed to course development and/or provided expert course facilitators and 3 of these have signed formal agreements with APRTC. The government of Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is hosting APRTC’s Website and agLe@rn courses on a server which they own and manage. Several international research and development organizations have or are collaborating on the development of courses.

Contact Information

Robert T. Raab
robert@aprtc.org
28th Floor Rasa Tower, 555 Phaholyothin Road, Chatuchak, 10900, Bangkok, + 66 2 - 937 - 1321

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