EAGER: Clima y Cafe: A Climate Change Adaptation Website for Policy and Production Decision-Making Support in Colombian Agriculture

由于贫困、基础设施落后和缺乏教育，并非所有社区都能平等地获得数字工具。这被称为数字鸿沟，即存在于能够获得并能够使用现代信息和通信技术的人和地区与不能使用现代信息和通信技术的人之间的差距。该项目的目标是学习如何通过鼓励当地社区内线上到线下共享的策略来克服数字鸿沟。这项研究的重点是一个新部署的网站（Clima y caf<s:1>），该网站是为哥伦比亚咖啡农量身定制的。该项目与当地社区（即有互联网接入的当地咖啡种植者协会）合作，向难以接触到的农村咖啡农传播数字信息。该项目将测试四项策略，以鼓励这些协会参与climy caf<s:1>网站在线内容的信息共享活动，并减少阻碍大多数咖啡农获取信息的数字鸿沟障碍。我们的目标是对沟通在构建支持复杂科学问题的政策决策中的作用进行新颖的评估，并从数据中构建一个有根据的理论，该理论可以为在其他复杂科学环境的适应中创建更好的数字支持提供信息。该项目特别侧重于解决通信能力问题，以支持哥伦比亚咖啡行业利益相关者的气候变化适应政策和生产决策。2020年，该项目团队推出了一个为哥伦比亚咖啡行业量身定制的数字平台，以支持适应气候变化。包括哥伦比亚咖啡农在内的许多农业社区都在努力获取数字信息，这可能会阻止他们获得急需的信息。因此，主要策略之一是利用先前确定的社会网络力量，即有互联网接入的自组织当地咖啡种植者协会，作为一个渠道，与没有互联网的难以接触的农民人口联系。该项目旨在揭示利用社区内的互联网接入点（当地咖啡种植者协会）并鼓励他们跨越数字鸿沟传播信息是否有助于当地参与和信息传播。这项研究将测试四种策略，看看它们是否、如何以及为什么能或不能在当地自组织协会中为农民带来数字鸿沟弥合的启示。这四种策略包括：(1)WhatsApp视频信息，(2)有针对性的广播片段，(3)面对面的小组培训，以及(4)社交媒体参与（Facebook + Instagram）。这项工作将为开发利用当地社区的网络优势向难以接触到的人口传播数字信息的新模式提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

All communities do not have equal access to digital tools due to poverty, poor infrastructure, and lack of education. This is referred to as the digital divide—that is, a gap that exists between people and regions who have access to and are able to use modern information and communication technology and those who cannot. The goal of this project is to learn how we can overcome the digital divide through strategies that encourage online-to-offline sharing within local communities. The research focuses on a newly deployed website (Clima y Café) which is tailored towards Colombian coffee farmers. The project engages with the local community (i.e., local coffee grower associations with internet access) to disseminate digital information to hard-to-reach rural coffee farmers. The project will test four strategies that encourage these associations to engage in information-sharing activities of online content from the Clima y Café website and reduce the barriers of the digital divide that prevent the majority of coffee farmers from gaining access to information. The goal is to provide a novel assessment of the role of communication in constructing affordances to support policy decision-making around complex scientific issues and build a grounded theory from the data that can inform the creation of better digital affordances in other adaptation of complex scientific contexts.This project focuses specifically on addressing the capacity of communication to support climate change adaptation policy and production decision-making for Colombian coffee sector stakeholders. In 2020, the project team launched a digital platform tailored to the Colombian coffee sector to support climate change adaptation. Many farming communities, including Colombian coffee farmers, struggle with digital access, which can prevent much-needed information from reaching them. As such, one of the primary strategies was to leverage a previously identified social network strength, which are self-organizing local coffee-grower associations who have internet access, to serve as a conduit to hard-to-reach farmer populations without internet. This project seeks to uncover whether leveraging internet-access points within a community (local coffee-grower associations) and encouraging them to disseminate information across the digital divide will contribute to local engagement and information spread. This research will test four strategies to see if, how and why they do or do not lead to digital divide bridging affordances in local self-organizing associations to farmers. The four strategies include: (1) WhatsApp video messages, (2) targeted radio segments, (3) in-person small group trainings, and (4) social media engagement (Facebook + Instagram). The work will inform the development of novel models for disseminating digital information to hard-to-reach populations by utilizing the network strengths of their own local communities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.