A few days ago, I gave a talk on participatory planning process, impact planning framework and farmer participatory research at a tree nursery project meeting. Because a colleague had wanted it to be a stakeholders’ meeting and get on with the development of their project’s scaling up plan, I suggested to clear the cobwebs first. The project leaders would need to address issues of partnerships and how to build trust among partners in order to reach project goals and ensure sustainability. In my talk, I stressed that farmer trials or in their case, tree nursery operators’ experiments are a prerequisite to scaling up. Perhaps because I said that without these trials, their project won’t fly, they acquiesced to that rule. But what the project staff worked on in the afternoon reflects a worrisome lack of conscious effort to wait until all stakeholders are on the same page before tasks are assigned and the project timeline is developed.
What is farmer participatory research?
Farmer experiments or farmer participatory research (FPR) is an approach, which involves encouraging farmers to engage in experiments in their own fields so that they can learn, adopt new technologies and spread them to other farmers. With the scientist acting as facilitator, farmers and scientists closely work together from initial design of the research project to data gathering, analysis, final conclusions, and follow-up actions. This step, sometimes known as innovation evaluation is essential for communication as well as for initiating diffusion. The main advantage of this approach is that farmers “learn by doing” and decision rules are modified on the basis of direct experience. To shape learning, interpretations of experience must provide information about what happened, why it happened and whether what happened was satisfactory or unsatisfactory. New information, technologies and concepts may be better communicated to farmers through the FPR approach.
Farmers meeting with agricultural extension officer in Suphan Buri, Thailand
How is FPR carried out?
1. Planning meeting
Initiate participatory experiments in collaboration with the local agricultural extension technician and the village head. In each village or district, invite 10 to 25 farmers. With the researcher acting as the facilitator, conduct group meetings with farmers. These half-day meetings can begin with general discussions about rice growing and related problems. Later, discussions should focus on the topic of relevance to both farmers and researchers. For instance, in pest management, the discussions may focus on the rice leaffolder, concerns about their damages, losses they could cause and methods of control. Encourage farmers to discuss whether the leaffolder needed control and whether anyone would volunteer to participate in evaluating a simple hypothesis.
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June 10, 2008 at 8:15 pm
ate sally
Sometime in 2002 I was a part of a BAR-funded project, ‘Enhancing Adoption of Corn-based technologies in Bohol and Leyte”. We did field trials of corn technologies, e.g. variety and some cultural management practices. In this project we have what we call “farmer scientists” who are involved in the research part of the project. He gathers data and participated in all the activities. A validation process is then done after each cropping season to get feedback from the farmers about the technologies introduced which serves as input to make the technology more adoptable (adaptable?). Also the farmer scientist trained can also train fellow farmers resulting to higher multiplier effect.
Prior to the conduct of the field trials , a meeting with corn farmers and the extension workers was done to discuss the problems besetting corn production in the area. Choice of the corn technologies tried were then based on the problems identified by the farmers.
June 11, 2008 at 3:21 am
Monina Escalada
Ate sally, how did you approach the farmers to motivate them to participate in the trials? What incentives were given? This transaction cost becomes a sticky issue because on one end, there’s a need to offer just rewards for the farmers’ time and effort, but on the other end, it can be seen as giving a dole-out. This seems to water down the value of farmer experiments. But farmers need to be compensated for their efforts too. I’m sure other readers have parallel experiences on this and have sorted out the issue of incentives in farmer trials.
June 12, 2008 at 6:55 am
ate sally
We did it together with the local government unit (LGU). I can’t exactly recall but I think the LGU paid for the inputs like seeds and fertilizer, and the extension workers were trained. The farmers were brought to Visca to observe.
June 25, 2008 at 9:27 pm
gingging
Hello Maam Moni,
I was also involved in the FPR project that Sally mentioned. The project was presented to the municipal mayor and to the DA-LGU staff. The LGU identified farmer participants and series of meetings/season-long training (every Friday) was also conducted. Good enough, our farmer cooperators were really good. But YES, this sticky DOLE-OUT issue was there. The project provided the seeds and fertilizers but all other farm inputs (labor, farm maintenance, etc.) were provided by the farmers. After harvest, though, farmers have to return the seeds (twice the quantity given) and distributed to other farmers who were not part of the project (like “snow ball” effect). We also agreed that after cropping it is the responsibility of the farmers to buy their own fertilizers for the succeeding cropping. However, as far as I can remember, farmers were only able to return the seeds (as agreed) but for them to buy their own fertilizers was not materialized. I observed that buying fertilizers (especially to upland crops) is a BURDEN to them as I always heard that instead of buying fertilizers, they will just use their money/cash to buy food (fish, meat, etc.). I feel that this is where our extension fails; how to effectively inculcate into the minds of the farmers that fertilizer (be it organic or inorganic) is part of the farming business. I hope I can contribute something to this effect in the future.
Honestly, I don’t know now what happened to those farmers; we did not conduct any post-evaluation after we left the area. This should have been done because GENERALLY farmers are only active when the university researchers are still there. But when they are left behind, they go back to what they were before. This is a sad scenario but a REALITY.
Maam Moni, thank you very much and more power.
June 26, 2008 at 12:23 am
Monina Escalada
Gingging, thanks for sharing your experience. When working with farmers, I find that what often works is to start with some form of community organizing. This involves engaging in a consciousness-raising process where the facilitator asks the key question, “Why are we poor?” That leads to a problem tree diagnosis. The point about buying fertilizers as part of the farm business can be introduced. That way farmers begin to think about it and eventually realize that reliance on dole-outs would lead them nowhere.