A case study of the role of agricultural knowledge broker

This paper addresses the identification of the rote of field knowledge broker in ICT based knowledge transfer practice in the perspective of knowledge transfer study. A case study is undertaken based on a Chinese agricultural extension project for the expert system applications implemented nationally in various agricultural production fields. This paper reveals that the field knowledge broker can have five roles for a successful implementation of knowledge transfer in the agriculture sector. The roles include: an infrastructure provider for local availability of expert system; a tailored expert system developer for usability of the expert system; a knowledge transfer conduit for transferring non-codified knowledge; a knowledge sharing organizer for facilitating local farmer's knowledge exchange; and a new knowledge creator for innovating new knowledge package in responding the local conditions.