INTERVIEW: You can't eat a laptop, but could it help grow more rice?

[Frederick Noronha <fred@bytesforall.org>]

YOU CAN'T EAT A LAPTOP, BUT COULD IT HELP GROW MORE RICE?

Recently, the Internet planted a new venture in the form of a rice knowledge
bank, grown out of South East Asia. Frederick Noronha <fred at bytesforall
dot org> interviewed Dr Albert Dean Atkinson <a dot atkinson at cgiar dot
org> over what could be the crop yielded by ventures like
http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/

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FN: Who is this service primarily targeted at -- farmers, agri
professionals, average citizens, all of these?
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The Rice Knowledge Bank (RKB) is targeted at the same audience as IRRI (the
Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute) -- essentially the
National Agricultural Research and Extension Services (NARES) in the
countries IRRI serves. However, we are finding that a much broader audience
is accessing the Knowledge Bank website than we had anticipated. These
include university professors, students, and even some who are coming to our
site to see "how we did it" so they can get their own knowledge repository
built.

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FN: How is it superior to existing paper or web-based resources?
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It has been said that getting information from the Internet is like drinking
from a fire hose; meaning that there is so much content, it's hard to find
exactly what you are looking for. 

But the RKB aims to "narrow the flow" of information by specifically
targeting rice research, information, and training conducted at IRRI. In
other words, it's not a repository of everything related to rice from around
the world. 

For example, a simple web search reveals over 6.2 million hits on rice. To
counter this information overload, materials in the Bank are designed to be
available in summarized, useful, and educationally appropriate forms and is
focused specifically around the work done at IRRI. 

It is superior to existing paper or web-based resources as it is the first
of its kind to utilize a concept known as single-source publishing. This
concept allows the RKB's content to be available on the Wed, on CD-ROM, or
in print from the same source. Thus, information is updated or expanded from
a single source and then made available to all in the format that best
suites their circumstances.

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FN: What did it cost to set up?
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I was hired with the mandate to establish ICT use for the training center at
IRRI. Therefore, my salary would be the primary cost for the project, along
with the salary of one instructional designer and a programmer. Other than
that, the RKB was very reasonable to set-up. All of the software we use for
its development and delivery costs less than US$5,000.

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FN: How much would it cost to sustain it each year?
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The only additional costs we will have would be the costs associated with
hosting the content on the Internet. We run the knowledge bank on a server
at IRRI and use IRRI's connection to the Internet. 

While these costs are real, it's difficult to say what it actually costs
IRRI to host the knowledge bank, though it is certainly less expensive than
having a private sector group do it for us (hosting) which can cost
$1200/month for the kind of traffic we are generating.

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FN: What has been the usage levels so far?
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We have had over one million hits on our site since it was launched in
April, 2002. For a complete report of our statistics, you can view
http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/stats

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FN: What kinds of information are available here? Will traditional and
low-input farming technologies also get equal play, or will the emphasis
be largely on chemical-based operations?
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IRRI's focus is to grow more food on less land using fewer chemical inputs
and less water while protecting the environment. The trend is toward
Integrated Nutrient, Pest, and Water management. Therefore, the emphasis of
the RKB is the same as IRRI and will focus more on traditional and low input
farming technologies rather than chemical-based operations.

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FN: What are the other useful Net-based operations offering information on
rice? Could you offer some URLs please?
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http://www.usarice.com/
http://www.philrice.gov.ph

Any of the sites located here:
http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/Agriculture/Crops_and_Soil/Specific_Crops/Grain
/Rice/

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FN: How many man-years of work did this venture involve?
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What you see at www.knowledgebank.irri.org was created by two people, full
time, since January, 2002.

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FN: What is the cost of the CD-Rom for rural communities?
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For partners, the CD is free. For others, we charge US$4.

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FN: How are your interacting with educational institutions from the Third
World? Will there be any efforts to share information with them?
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For a complete listing of the institutions we work with, please see
http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/partners.htm.

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FN: What do you think of the current available of rice-based information in
a country like India? Is it sufficient? Or is whatever's available too
centralised?
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Our partner institutes, such as Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) in
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu State do great work in creating and disseminating
rice-based information. 

I think with India's growing telecommunications infrastructure, we'll see
more opportunities to use the Internet to deliver training and this is where
the RKB can assist. (www.bytesforall.org)