Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the 1980s and 1990s, more farmer participatory approaches were developed in which
farmers are a key part of the research team, help define needs, plan research pro-
grams, and conduct trials (e.g., Ashby et al., 1995). The main limitation to this sys-
tem was the intensive and expensive nature of the methodology and the difficulties
of scaling up results to large areas.
Recent advances go beyond the notion of “extension” and focus on what have
become known as “innovation systems.” Any particular research entity is only one
of many actors influencing technical change. Nevertheless, a research program can
trigger or catalyze change through an approach that perceives innovation as a social
process in which “agents” (researchers, stakeholders, end users) engage in “learn-
ing selection.” In learning selection, agents try something new, for example, a new
technology or a new institutional arrangement. They explore the innovation, try to
make sense of it on their own terms, and adapt it more closely to their own needs.
Ultimately, they decide whether to keep using it. The learning process enables them
to select which (modified) innovations they will carry forward and which ones they
will abandon. Learning selection, like natural selection, does not just happen once
but rather iterates through numerous cycles. Research centers can stimulate and
accelerate innovation systems and learning selection by using participatory meth-
ods, offering new technical prototypes to be subjected to learning selection, mapping
and “weaving” networks, defining “impact pathways,” and fostering interaction that
leads innovation along these pathways (Douthwaite, 2002).
Impact pathways portray how research activities result in change by defining the
causal chain of activities, outputs, and outcomes through which a project anticipates
achieving its purpose and goal and by mapping the evolving relationships among
project-implementing organizations, stakeholders, and ultimate beneficiaries.
In the future, new resource management technologies are likely to be more com-
plicated, requiring more local adaptation. Facilitation of learning selection, fostering
the development of suitable stakeholder networks, and anticipating impact pathways
will become increasingly important. An example of this can be found in South Asia,
where zero-till wheat was successful in the state of Haryana, and adoption was fast
because farmers were part of the evaluation team, were given prototypes with which
to experiment, and were offered opportunities to interact with and learn from each
other—and because innovation systems included private sector implement manufac-
turers as well as farmers, extension workers, and scientists. In other states where this
was not done, acceptance of zero till was much slower.
The last topic on extension relates to the availability of information to farmers.
The potential for using electronic means of delivering information, even to remote
villages, is gaining ground daily. In India, for example, there are public and pri-
vate programs to make computers and the Internet available in each village. Local
people are trained to use these modern facilities and provide information to farmers.
The information could be about new varieties, better management, disease or insect
issues, but also prices and markets for products. The need of the day is the develop-
ment of relevant materials that can be posted on easily accessible Web pages that
are useful for solving farmer problems. Similarly, many farmers or villages are also
linked by cell phones, a situation that would have been hard to believe with land-line
systems a few decades ago. This means that farmers now and in the future have the
