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 Participatory
Technology Development,
Testing, and Transfer
 Participatory Varietal
Selection (PVS). Using PVS approach, scientists and farmers are together testing a much wider range of potentially useful plant material than was being done before.
PVS is a bottom-up approach that is impact-oriented and demand-driven for technology generation and dissemination.
The program involves three formal evaluations of the crop by farmers. It uses a dual approach of introducing farming communities to new varieties, and gaining information on farmers’ preferences in rice plants to feed back into the breeding process.
Results of the use of the PVS approach have been positive with various WARDA-developed lines, including several NERICA rices, achieving acceptance at the
various locations. The PVS program, which started in 1997, with a few countries (Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Ghana and Togo) now includes all
17 member countries of WARDA.
With the success of PVS, seed production was identified as a major bottleneck in the dissemination of new crops.
 Community-based seed production system
(CBSS). To overcome the constraints of the conventional seed system, CBSS -– a new seed multiplication scheme
-– using farmers’ practices and indigenous knowledge, was introduced as an alternative seed-supply mechanism for small-holder farmers.
This new scheme of seed production offers an opportunity for the rapid spread of the NERICAs
and other rice varieties into existing low-input, subsistence crop production systems in West and Central Africa. It reduces the time required for seed availability to farmers.
 Participatory Learning and Action Research
(PLAR). In 2001, WARDA started developing an approach for Integrated Crop Management
(ICM) under inland-valley conditions. A bottom-up social learning process called PLAR was tested with two groups of about 30 farmers in two inland valleys near Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire. The objective of the PLAR for ICM is to promote technological change through improving farmers capacity to exchange knowledge, experiences and practices, to better observe, analyze and take appropriate decisions for action and to get organized for action.
The outcome of the PLAR process is groups of farmers that are able to find adaptive responses to site-specific problems and make the best use of available resources,
namely local knowledge as well as research based understanding of underlying processes. WARDA, together with the national extension service, facilitates the PLAR process during weekly sessions with the groups of farmers, using a wide range of learning tools such as cropping calendars, maps, diagrams, field observations, monitoring
forms.
The learning tools put emphasis on making things visible so that interactive learning takes place among farmers and with the facilitators. The learning tools form the basis of 30 modules covering all aspects of ICM such as land preparation, transplanting, weeds and pests management, but also harvest and post-harvest
issues and marketing. These modules constitute the curriculum for farmer learning on ICM. In the first year (2001), application of ICM increased rice yields by 600
kg/ha. Moreover, each participating farmer shared at least one component of the ICM with an average of two (non-participating) neighbors. Four of the 60 farmers were trained as farmer-trainers to extend the PLAR for ICM process to neighboring inland-valley lowlands. The methodology
spread to six more countries, and four lowland communities near those where PLAR was initiated have asked the farmer-trainers to implement the program for them.
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