Spatial knowledge interchange environment: leveraging web 2.0 technologies to breach the knowledge divide in agricultural development

Abstract

Agricultural output has been declining in the Caribbean although several strategies are being implemented to enhance development. The dichotomy between modern external experts (MEE) and locally grounded experts (LGE) generates a fracture that limits agricultural development and hinders good governance. There is a need for a change in the language and interface for decision making in local rural villages amongst stakeholders. This paper discusses the use of modern web technology in support of collaborative exercises that bring agricultural practitioners and their traditional knowledge closer to more remote, modern external experts. A more people friendly spatial language application will be explored, harnessing volunteered geographic information (VGI) and participatory decision making on an ESRI ArcGIS platform, while leveraging Web 2.0 technologies that will support knowledge building for agricultural development. Participation represents a new developmental paradigm that fosters empowerment and is needed at the domestic level to propagate a strong sense of democracy in the decision-making process enabling the micro actor, cultivating greater involvement, accountability and thus more sustainable solutions. The effective management of agricultural land and its resources require spatial data that is current, reliable and easily accessible. By extension, this will require systematized informal data and simplified formal data to incorporate and network a functional participatory program for agricultural development.