Knowledge Translation in Agriculture: A Literature Review

Knowledge from research should be disseminated not only to advance knowledge but also to inform practice and policy decisions. Research knowledge has the potential to influence practice and policy and result in tangible outcomes. Agriculture plays a vital role in the economies of many nations. Given the value placed on the transfer and use of research knowledge, and in light of the importance of agriculture research, this review article explores studies that have been carried out with respect to knowledge translation in agriculture to determine the amount, focus, and nature of such studies. The main procedures for conducting the review were: (1) searching for studies; (2) selecting studies based on relevance; (3) extracting data; and (4) reporting the findings. The findings are presented according to five key points derived from Lavis' framework for knowledge transfer: the message; the target audience; the messenger; the knowledge translation process and support system; and evaluation. Out of 268 studies identified through various search strategies, twenty-seven were deemed to be relevant to the objectives and were included in the review. Findings from this review elucidate that while there was a variety of knowledge transferred, agriculture researchers are the most popular messengers for the transfer of agriculture research knowledge and farmers are the most popular target audience. This review demonstrates that although there are studies on knowledge translation with an emphasis on agriculture knowledge to farmers indexed in scholarly databases, it advocates for more empirical studies to investigate how research knowledge is translated to policy-makers in the agriculture domain. It also calls for studies to explicate the role of libraries and library and information science professionals in the translation of agriculture research knowledge.