contributed by: Verna Florece

Databank Information System. The responsibility of this information system is to observe, classify, and store any item of data which might be potentially useful to the decision maker. Examples of the kind of data that might be recorded in such a database for a given village, region, or area are as follows:

· Number of farms
· Number of units of arable land (hectares, fedans, acres)
· Average farm size
· Amounts of selected farm inputs applied annually
· Production per year on a unit of land for selected crops

A second example of data that might be recorded in a database (this time involving data internal to the organization) is as follows:

· Number of extension staff by category and assigned to a particular village, region, or area
· Number of work hours devoted by staff to selected concerns for a particular village, region, or area
· Total extension salary costs and other expenses by village, region, or area
· Number of demonstrations conducted for selected farm technologies by village, region, or area
· Number of on-farm trials conducted for selected farm technologies by region or area
· Number of radio, TV, and print media releases regarding selected farm technologies by time period and region or area

Each of these databases can be summarized and converted to single tabular presentations of information of interest to management. When information from two or more time periods is compared, trends can be observed.