Talking Pictures is an innovative system that packages scientific and economic models in a highly-accessible, pictorial format that is designed for “non-specialists” (farmers and extension staff) in developing countries. Talking Pictures guides to management decision-making are easily customised to local conditions and can assist these end-users in analysing and improving their own management decision-making.

Talking Pictures – Dairy (TP-D) is an implementation of the Talking Pictures concept that supports effective decision making by small-holder dairy producers in a wide range of situations. It achieves this by analysing interactions amongst the most important management variables that influence the productive and economic outputs of the dairy animal (e.g. feed quality and quantity, physiological status of the animal) and predicting the outcomes of alternative management strategies. TP-D has now been widely tested in East Africa and South Asia and, in proper use, exhibits a high degree of accuracy in predicting the responses of dairy animals producing between 5 and 20 litres of milk per day.

TP-D is a true, generic tool. Put simply, the implications of this are that it can be put to a wide range of uses, many of which may not have been originally anticipated by its designers. This offers end-users a degree of flexibility in addressing their own problems that no other “knowledge-management” systems for the agrarian sector in developing countries can match.

You can also view the TP-D project profile for further information .