Study On The Innovation Of Agricultural Technology Service System From The AKIS Perspective

The Modern Agricultural Industrial Technology System Innovation Team (hereinafter referred to as "Innovation Team") can be called the first agricultural technology service system innovation of China considering its scale, input and policy support. It is also an innovation of the traditional government-driven agricultural technology extension system. The resourceful government provides large support of human, finance and material to establish the Innovation Team, which is classified by products and industry, aiming to break through the dilemma of disconnection between agricultural research, extension and production. Whether has the Innovation Team obtained its objective? How has it obtained it? This research is going to answer the above questions by using the Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (AKIS) theory to deconstruct the Innovation Team-driven agricultural technology service system and study on its universally applicable rules.This research is based on the humanistic methodology, adopts literature analysis, case study, questionnaire survey, and induction and deduction, etc, studying the Innovation Team qualitatively and quantitatively. It applies the AKIS theoretical framework, combined with theories of development communication and agricultural extension, to systematically study the Innovation Team from four aspects:subsystem, information process, system mechanism, and system operation.Major findings are:1) the Innovation system is nested on the traditional agricultural extension system and acted as a supplement of it;2) information flow within the Innovation Team is fluent and effective, demonstrating a "top to bottom" and "bottom to top" two-way communication;3) the critical node of information diffusion is the Farmer Field School (FFS). Its philosophy of "participation" and the institutionalization of FFS opening procedure largely support farmers to express their demand with high effectiveness.4) the Innovation Team is operated under a double-track mechanism. The function laboratories and FFS working stations jointly offer agricultural extension service for target clients;5) small-scale farmers obtain user control of AKIS;6) large-scale farmers are target clients of the market. Government intervention under such circumstances is proved to be less efficient. The success of intervention on small-scale farmers is reflected on intervention of information;7) the narrowed AKIS between FFS station and farmer is effective.Based on the above findings, this paper makes following proposals:1) during the reform of agricultural extension system, the government should set the small-scale farmers as target clients;2) the government should continue to operate FFS, legalize FFS system, and incorporate is as part of the government functions;3) the government should set up platform to promote the communication between agricultural companies, farmer cooperatives and agricultural research institutions so as to promote technology transmission and application.