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Paper short abstract:

Global challenges in food, climate and inequalities pose substantial obstacles for development. Communication has a critical role in addressing these challenges. This paper critically reflects on the Rural Communication Services framework as an approach for more inclusive agricultural practice.

Paper long abstract:

Global challenges in food security and changing environmental conditions pose substantial obstacles for essential sustainable development. Simultaneously, social, economic, geographic and political inequalities challenge the systems able to ensure global food security. To this end, communication has long played a fundamental role in rural transformation and agricultural development. Communication continues to play a critical role in supporting capacity building, knowledge sharing, transformation and challenging inequalities.

Sustainable agricultural development is a complex, multi-faceted and context specific long-term process. To be successful, it requires farmers and rural populations to have the critical skills to make better decisions, enabled by sustained facilitation of learning, access to resources and innovation. Practically, this means services that are institutionalised within structures that have the resources and capacities to support such processes. This paper presents Rural Communication Services as a communication concept to address these challenges. Rural Communication Services are demand-led communication processes, activities, technologies and institutional arrangements that take an inclusive approach to responding to the communication needs of family farmers and rural populations.

This paper will use findings from global consultations on Rural Communication Services done by the FAO in Autumn 2022 to critically reflect on Rural Communication Services. It will analyse and interrogate the results of these consultation processes to present a critical reflection on the Rural Communication Services framework as an approach for more inclusive agricultural practice. This analysis will highlight lessons, opportunities and challenges for how agricultural practices can, and should, change to achieve sustainable agricultural systems.