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Unlocking farmers’ best-kept
secrets
A joint WARDA-IFAD project
helps document local knowledge and innovations
Did you know that you
can get rid of termites by smoking them out with tobacco leaves;
that if rice seeds are dressed with wood ash, they can be safely
stored; or that tethering of livestock in cereal fields can help
reduce Striga infestation in those fields?
If you haven’t heard of these simple solutions, you are not the
only one. Quite a few agricultural researchers and extension
workers are also not aware of them. These are some of the little
known local “best practices” that are being identified,
validated and documented, thanks to the project Participatory
adaptation and diffusion of technologies for rice-based systems
(PADS) in West Africa (Phase II).
The project is carried out by the Africa Rice Center (WARDA) and
its partners in four West African countries—Ghana, Guinea, Mali
and The Gambia—with support from the International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD).
The project focuses on the inland valley systems, and its
overall aim is to improve rice productivity, stimulate crop
diversification and increase farmers’ incomes in these systems.
To achieve its aim, the project seeks to identify, evaluate,
enhance and scale out sustainable innovations—not only
from research institutes, but also home-grown ones, in
particular from farming communities.
Indeed, a major challenge of PADS is to change the mindset of
the people who work with farmers. “Most of us automatically
assume that scientists are the sole source of innovation in
agriculture,” says Dr Paul Van Mele, WARDA Technology Transfer
Specialist, who is leading this project.
“We tend to forget that farmers play a significant role as local
innovators capitalizing on their day-to-day experience,” he
explains. Unfortunately, their knowledge often gets lost over
time or remains locked up in the memories of individual families
and communities, because of the lack of suitable mechanism for
dissemination.
The project will select some of the successful and widely
applicable local innovations for dissemination in the region
through farmer-to-farmer extension and mass media. “Some of
these local innovations may even be considered as researchable
topics by scientists for their experiments,” Dr Van Mele
comments.
But how do you go about finding local innovations? And once
identified, how do you document them? Finally, how do you select
the ones that are most suitable for scaling up?
To address such questions, in 2005-2006 four training workshops
were held in each of the countries for project coordinators,
extension workers, scientists and NGOs. These focused on
concepts, tools and techniques to better understand farmers’
perceptions and innovations:
Tools to classify knowledge and understand knowledge flows
Knowledge matrix: This tool helps to classify the
knowledge of people on any subject into four types: deep,
shallow, mistaken and missing. Based on this, appropriate
interventions can be developed. For instance, if farmers have
deep knowledge about controlling an insect pest, this is the
place where local innovations are likely to be plenty and where
scientists can learn from them.
Local names: What’s in a name—you might wonder. But it is
important to remember that local names often tell a story or
give the summary of a problem. For example, in some parts of
Ghana, rice off-types are known as Modiak (male rice), which
implies a negative connotation, because rice is considered a
female crop, a life giver.
Well-being analysis: The poorest are often forced to
innovate to survive. The well-being analysis allows farmers to
identify the poorest section in their own community. In the
project, the tool is also used to evaluate the social dimensions
of farmer-to-farmer extension and to measure the impact of its
interventions.
Tools and techniques to collect, document and scale out local
innovations
Interviewing techniques: During the workshop,
participants learn how to listen to farmers and use open-ended
questions to elicit useful answers from them.
Documenting techniques: The art of storytelling is a
valuable skill for describing and documenting local innovations
in a more reader-friendly way.
Validation criteria: Participants from diverse
backgrounds learn to identify the local innovations that are
worthwhile to disseminate, using such criteria as whether the
innovations are sensitive to local cultures; safe;
environmentally friendly; likely to be accepted; and whether the
required materials are readily available.
Tools for scaling out: Towards the end of the workshop,
participants explore the advantages, drawbacks and potential of
various extension methods, and develop action plans for
large-scale dissemination of local innovations and underlying
scientific principles.
“One of the most important findings emerging from the Project is
that people in developing countries often face similar
challenges,” observes Dr Van Mele, giving the example of how the
videos on rice seed health, made in Bangladesh with rural women,
have become a big hit in many African villages.
The Project not only facilitates the sharing of knowledge and
innovations from one community to another and from one region to
another, but also aims at institutionalizing pro-poor research
and development processes—all crucial contributions to solving
global issues. |
