Abstract
Networking is a useful tool in agricultural development. Networks facilitate information exchange, allow their members to benefit from synergy, offer flexible management approaches to overcome structural constraints, and can help organizations use resources more efficiently. However they have weaknesses too: they may be biased against some groups, they are difficult to evaluate, they may be poorly coordinated, and they often lack the technical and financial resources needed to effectively achieve their objectives. Networkers promoting the circulation of agricultural information in the near future should consider how best to fill niches in the global agricultural information system, how to use networking to improve agricultural policies, and how to use electronic networking to provide developing countries with more relevant agricultural information. This paper is based on a study of information exchange networking financed by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), and reported in Nelson and Farrington (1994).
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