Message from the Director
FFTC Director Jen-Chyuan Lee
INFORMATION IS VITAL IN TERMS OF enabling small-scale farmers to achieve improved agricultural productivity, make effective use of natural resources, raise their income, and produce food that is accessible, available and affordable to all. For the Food and Fertilizer Technology Center (FFTC) for the Asian and Pacific Region, serving small-scale farmers by bringing them information on improved agricultural technology is an evolving task and a continuing commitment.
After more than 30 years as a regional information center, FFTC is now faced with the challenge to explore the opportunities presented by the current technological and information revolution, to render Asian agriculture more competitive and productive, resilient, sustainable, and equitable toward the broad-based agricultural growth and overall development of the region.
We at FFTC recognize the need to attain a strong international web presence to better serve as a show window of the region’s sustainable agricultural development. Hence, we are launching this much improved web site to be able to create better networking and facilitate collaboration and partnership, disseminate and exchange information efficiently and cost-effectively, and deliver all functionality required for the Center to realize its mission as a regional information center.
In 2001, the Center has made available free of charge on its website and database the full text of its publications for the last 15 years. Since then, the FFTC website/ database has become an important information resource on Asian agriculture, particularly by the national extension systems of the region. In the five years since it first came on-line, the level of use has tended to double each year. The website registered 76,000 requests in 2000; 417,000 requests in 2001; 822,472 in 2002; 1.6 million requests in 2003; 2.3 million requests in 2004; and 3.02 million requests in 2005. This growing use of the FFTC website and database gave a larger number of people access to the Center’s technical information.
This newly renovated web site intends to add a more global, professional, distinctive look; extend more credibility and quality; provide users with a much wider range of useful and practical agricultural information; and improve navigation visual cues for target audience toward reaching wider viewership. Though this new and improved site, we envision to enhance the Center’s international presence; facilitate interaction and networking among partner institutions within the region; and make possible a more cost-effective way of disseminating practical information to its users, particularly the extension workers and small-scale farmers in the ASPAC Region.
