Agricultural information management (AIM) is concerned with all actvities and resources necessary

for acquisition, storage, updating, and making agricultural information and data of all kinds and

formats—scientific research reports, growers’ testimonies, market information, details of practical

crop production technologies, machinery, weather forecasts, sources of credit, production, education

and training and other instructional manuals, ‘grey zone’ literature—accessible to agricultural

stakeholders at all levels. AIM considers not only information resources and technologies,

but also development of the human resources needed for efficient use of these technologies.

Agriculture, in the medium term at least, is seen as key to reversing worsening poverty in many

countries in SSA. If this strategy is to succeed, the relevance, quality and accessibility of information

for all agricultural stakeholders must be assured on a wider scale than ever before. Agricultural

information and AIM are therefore attracting intensified focus as a critical component of projects,

programmes and agreements concerned with economic development and poverty reduction in Sub-

Saharan Africa. But isolated approaches to AIM for development may have little chance of success.

Several resources need to be in place before information can be acted upon and lead to the changes

desired by the individuals, communities, organisations, states (Figure 1). These resources include:

• Data Resources: availability of relevant data.

• Economic Resources: the money, the skills, and the technology in order to access the data.

• Social Resources: the motivation, confidence and knowledge to access, assess and apply the data,

and to be able to trust the source.

• Action Resources: the ability to act on the decisions made with the information. This may be

hard resources eg money, technology, raw materials or soft resources eg skills and empowerment.

This implies a high degree of integration between AIM services and other services, together with

policy.