LESSONS LEARNED - Science for Agriculture and Rural Development in Low-income Countries - page 105

safety authorities that are responsible for regulating agro-chemical use are major
bottle-necks for effectively preventing pollution and ensuring food safety. Policy
relevance and enforcement of the projects in this field may be hampered by lack of
cooperation with extension services and other agencies responsible for implemen-
tation of research findings. This experience indicates the need for a re-orientation of
partnerships, as well as for institutional changes (e.g., to strengthen the generally
weakened local extension services).
The projects, in general, paid limited attention to quantifying greenhouse gas
emissions from agricultural activities and/or to identification of feasible technologies to
reduce such emissions.
In Africa, soil nutrient depletion is widespread and a greater threat to sustain-
ability than pollution problems related to excess use of fertilizers and herbicides. A
wide range of improved technologies has been developed. Partly, these new tech-
nologies were the result of local initiatives that required further scientific support for
refinement or infrastructure to become effective. Furthermore, many 'on-the-shelf'
technologies, developed at research stations or through on-farm experiments with
farmers, are only accessible to a relatively small group of farmers, because of
insufficient capacity of local extension services.
Farmers' behaviour analysed and innovative farming systems designed
Analysis of farmers' behaviour shows that farmers are capable of adapting to local
biophysical and socio-economic changes, but often lack access to external knowledge,
preventing them to react adequately to rapid changes. To utilize both local and
international knowledge, projects have increasingly attempted to combine research
and extension work. Examples are participatory technology development and analysis
of innovative farming practices, based on integration of agro-ecological and economic
principles with empirical knowledge.
Again, the socio-political setting has a decisive influence on access to the means
required to implement innovations. Such means are more likely available for products
that can be traded nationally or internationally. In analysing the decision behaviour
of farmers (e.g., whether or not to introduce a new technology), all activities of a
household should be taken into account. Such an approach could be in conflict with
a possible choice for a sector-specific approach, concentrating on a few sectors. For
some regions that are dominated by specific sectors (e.g., horticulture; meat or dairy
production) this may not be an important issue.
Linking research, extension and capacity building aimed at increasing the problem
solving capacity and impact on society, requires a balanced mix of research and
other activities.
Decision support tools developed and evaluated with stakeholders
The projects generated a variety of new software tools for analysing land use options
at different scales (farm, village, district and province). Targeted end users of these
tools are, in most cases, local research teams, planners or extension workers. In