The 85 organizations identified by participants are involved in the transfer of knowledge throughout Malawi’s extension and this network contains 170 unique relationships. Although the average degree of collaboration between organizations is low at 6.2, several organizations and actors were identified as central to network connectedness and the transfer of knowledge within the extension system. Organizations with the highest degrees of collaboration include ADDs, DAES, MoAIWD, farmers, NACDC, Catholic Relief Services, and NASFAM. There are a variety of advisory methods used to educate farmers about CSA practices which include ICTs, trainings, and written materials. The use of ICTs includes radio, SMS, internet, TV, Call Centers, and Mobile Vans. The majority of organizations use radio to disseminate messages to farmers through national and community stations. SMS was also used by over 50% of organizations to disseminate information directly to farmers through text messages and IVR. Participants noted that ICT platforms complement one another by providing increased access to information for farmers who cannot afford technology, are illiterate, or require specific recommendations to address agricultural issues. 90% of organizations used trainings to communicate information to farmers including Lead Farmer Approaches, Farmer Field Schools, site visits, demonstrations, and the Model Village approach. Written materials were also commonly mentioned by organizations, but varied in format and length from short leaflets or posters describing a particular technology or production process to longer manuals or lesson plans used by government extension providers during trainings or newspapers used by farmer organizations highlighting farmers success stories.

Organizations address climate change by recommending strategies to farmers including being climate informed,seedling starter pot good agriculture practices, water conservation, soil management, improved seeds, diversification, agroforestry, and reducing disease and pests. The most common strategy recommended to farmers was to be climate-informed and have information about the near-term weather conditions of a particular locality. The most common challenges in providing effective information for maize farmers to adapt to climate change included a lack of resources and a lack of clear and consistent messages. Resource challenges encompassed a lack of funding, staff expertise, skill set, and training, and equipment. Participants explained that challenges surrounding messages often resulted in the duplication of information provided to farmers by multiple organizations.This chapter elaborates on key research findings, offers contributions to current theoretical perspectives, and provides recommendations and implications for future research. Within Malawi’s extension network, the direction of information exchanges both in the development of content and sharing of information within the network is notably asymmetric. Certain organizations hold substantial power within this network because more information comes to them, then is shared by them. The government departments included in the core of both networks are also not representative of all types of organizations within Malawi’s extension system. Ingold and colleagues argue that the vertical integration of actors from different types of organizations is essential for knowledge transfer and adaptation to climate change. Moreover, the integration of actors from lower governance levels is crucial for information acceptance from all stakeholders and increases the strength of relationships within the network.

The content development network shows an imbalance of power between high-level government departments and other organizations operating in the extension system. The most commonly referenced content developers were government departments operating within MoAIWD and MoREM structures, CGIARs, the U.S Government and NACDC. While these organizations have high in-degree scores, their out-degree scores are low. This reveals that other organizations rely on these actors as content developers, but the content development process is not reciprocal. The NACDC which includes a diversity of stakeholders is spearheaded and led by representatives from DAES and MoAIWD suggesting that power lies with those government representatives when decisions are made in the committee. It is noteworthy that the majority of extension providers were not referenced as content developers and remain in the periphery of this network. Within the government sector, only ministry departments and district personnel were referenced as content developers. This indicates a lack of vertical integration among organizations involved in content development and reveals a top-down, hierarchical structure of content development among government departments and research institutions perceived to be experts in climate change adaptation and agricultural technologies. These findings are consistent with analyses conducted by research organizations who have found that the public sector remains the central technology generator for agricultural research and development in Malawi . It is also important to recognize that farmers are the main clientele for EAS in Malawi, but are not commonly referenced as content developers. Bezner Kerr and colleagues note that low farmer adoption of agricultural technologies in Malawi may be due to a lack of farmer involvement in the co-creation of knowledge.

Several studies have also found that participatory approaches that involve Malawian farmers in the creation of knowledge can increase farmer confidence in experimenting with new agricultural technologies, support knowledge sharing among farming communities, and strengthen farmer networks to build adaptative capacity . However, there is a clear integration of multi-sectorial actors within Malawi’s extension system and the composition of organizations within the core of the information sharing network is heterogenous. Additionally, the types of organizations present within the core of the network are fairly diverse with the exclusion of private sector actors. In fact, farmers have one of the highest degrees of collaboration within the network and are critical actors that link other organizations together. Therefore, farmers are not only receivers of information, but also are important transfers of knowledge between organizations addressing climate change impacts in Malawi. However, a significant number of organizations are not as well connected to the core of the network and operate within the periphery. These organizations are not only reliant on actors to receive information, but also may experience difficulty in communicating their messages to core actors within the network. In terms of information communication platforms, trainings, ICTs, and written materials are the advisory methods most used to communicate climate smart agricultural practices to farmers. Trainings are the most common way organizations disseminate this information to farmers and participants utilize Lead Farmers, Farmer Field Schools, site visits, demonstrations, and the Model Village Approach. Trainings facilitated by Lead Farmers were commonly referenced by participants who noted that this approach increase access to and the adoption of agricultural technologies because local farmers trust and value information from their peers. This is consistent with a 2012 survey that found that 78% of extension providers used the Farmer-to Farmer approach . Lead Farmers often hold leadership positions in a community, provide education and training to peer farmers, and organize meetings and discussions. Some Lead Farmers receive compensation or accreditation for their services, although most do not. For ICTs, radio is overwhelmingly the most common medium used followed by SMS, internet, TV, Call Centers, and Mobile Vans. For example, an NGO called Farm Radio Trust “provides farmer advisory services through radio programming, trains and builds capacity of broadcasters and radio stations, and promotes participatory radio campaigns facilitated using ICTs” . Farmer groups allow for the greater dissemination of ICTs for those who do not have access to technologies or are illiterate. Written materials are commonly distributed to farmers as leaflets, posters,round nursery pots and magazines or are utilized by extension during trainings and can help to strengthen information delivery for those who are literate. However, written materials were not commonly referenced by Malawi NGOs who noted that their organizations do not have the resources to print and distribute written materials. The most notable finding from an analysis of the practices recommended by extension providers to address climate change is that farmers are commonly informed about climate and weather conditions, but are slightly less informed about specific strategies to deal with the impacts of climate change. Participant organizations frequently receive weather forecasts from DMCCS and then share information about expected temperature and precipitation conditions with the farmers they serve.

However, only one participant mentioned the delivery of climate informed programming for farmers to address local climate impacts. Additional strategies recommended by some participant organizations to address climate change include good agriculture practices, water conservation, soil management, improved seeds, diversification, and agroforestry. However, many of these strategies hold different meanings for participants and encompass a variety of different activities. For example, “good agriculture practices” seems to be a generic phrase which includes general agronomic practices, understanding the characteristics of certain crop varieties, land preparation methods, fertilizer applications, and other approaches designed to increase crop productivity. It’s also unclear if these strategies directly address climate change impacts. Other strategies like conservation agriculture which fall into the category of soil management also appear to hold different meanings for participant organizations. For instance, conservation agriculture might include crop rotations, minimum tillage agriculture, crop residue, manure and compost additions to a field. Yet participants noted that farmers tend to disregard agricultural practices if they do not receive consistent information from extension providers. Therefore, while extension providers might prefer certain conservation agriculture practices over others; messages communicated to farmers must be clear and consistent otherwise they are less likely to be adopted. Nutrition and economic strategies were referenced by participants as cross-cutting themes when describing organizational activities, goals, and climate adaptation practices. Diversification, improved seeds, and agroforestry were climate adaptation practices that participants also mentioned as nutrition and economic strategies. Crop diversification allows households to consume a greater diversity of nutrients while providing the option for farmers to receive an income from different crops sold to markets, cushioning the potential impacts from the loss of a single crop. Some participants also recommended that farmers use fortified maize in order to address nutritional deficiencies. Finally, agroforestry serves environmental, economic, and nutrition purposes by improving soil fertility, acting as a buffer between rivers and farmer’s fields, and allowing farm households to diversify their diets by growing fruit trees for consumption. Gender was also referenced by extension providers as a cross-cutting theme in the delivery of EAS to farmers. In fact, several participants echoed statistics shared by the GoM noting that 70% of farmers in Malawi are women and produce 80% of food for household consumption . Although this study did not evaluate differences between men and women’s involvement in content development, gender inequality has been cited as a significant barrier to women’s participation in knowledge production and access to EAS in Malawi . Furthermore, 56% of Malawian women are illiterate and this has been associated with additional difficulty in accessing agricultural information . In terms of extension challenges, a lack of clear and consistent messages was refenced by the majority of participants in addition to a lack of resources. While participants from farmer organizations, Malawi NGOs, international NGOs, and the private sector referenced a lack of clear and consistent messages as substantial challenges, only 20% of government participants referenced messages as a challenge. One reason for this difference could be the high degree of connectedness of government departments within the extension network compared to other organization types. Government organizations that were referenced both as content developers and as central transfers of knowledge within the extension network might not view messages as a challenge because they operate as core actors within the network. Therefore, government personnel may believe that their messages are effectively communicated throughout the extension system while this might not be the case for organizations that are not as closely linked to government departments. A lack of resources was the most common challenge referenced by participants, but within this category; staffing challenges were the most commonly cited. Organizations often lack the proper number of individuals to fill extension positions, staff are not effectively trained, or staff lack certain experiences or skills in the extension field. The theoretical perspective employed in this research utilize elements from the diffusion of innovation theory, social network analysis, and DLEC’s conceptual framework for analyzing Malawi’s extension system. These perspectives were useful in understanding the development and dissemination of climate adaption information as well as key characteristics of EAS in Malawi. This study indicated that the development of content in Malawi’s extension system appears to follow one of the core assumptions of the diffusion of innovation theory in which agricultural innovations are developed by researchers and high-level government departments, disseminated by extension personnel, and then communicated to farmers who adopt technologies at different rates based on a variety of factors.