Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
on a sustainable basis. Relatively few in number, these outstanding agricultural actors
are the real expert farmers who constitute the keystone, the core social catalysts in
demonstration site activities (Padoch and Pinedo-Vasquez, 1999; Pinedo-Vasquez,
Gyasi, and Coffey, 2002). They may be spotted or identified by “combining skilled
field observations with the close participation of many [other] farmers; long-term
research with frequent consultation with farmers'organizations” (Padoch, 2002: 104).
Demonstration site defined
Abdulai
et al
. see a demonstration site as:
a place where PLEC scientists, farmers and other environmental stakeholders carry out
work in a participatory manner to conserve and even enhance agricultural and biological
diversity and the biophysical resources underpinning it. It is an area where the scientists
work with farmers in the creation of projects that are [the farmers'] own and [where,
together, the scientists and farmers] demonstrate the value of locally developed tech-
niques and technologies. It belongs to the farmers, in that the work done in a demon-
stration site is the farmers' own. The role of scientists is only to facilitate, measure and
evaluate local methods and help to select the method most likely to be sustained (Abdulai
et al
., 1999: 19)
The definition goes on to say that “The sites may vary in size and a site may
contain sub-sites, notably a farm or a patch. However, sites must be at the local
or perceptible landscape level” (Abdulai
et al
., 1999: 20)
In Ghana, the PLEC operational definition of the primary demonstration site is
a smallholder farmer area measuring approximately 10
100 sq. km.
Such an area is small enough to facilitate focused in-depth fieldwork, but large
enough to show significant internal agro-ecological variations and to permit study
by aerial photographs and satellite imagery. Specific focal sites of demonstration
activities lie within this area.
It is implicit in the definition that demonstration sites could assume different
sizes, or occur at various spatial or geographical scales/levels of resolution.
Any of the following landscape levels, which are presented in a more or
less hierarchical order, would seem to be appropriate for PLEC demonstrative
activities.
•
10 km
plot or patch within a farmed area
•
farm, or a contiguous area managed as an agricultural unit
•
agricultural holding, or a collection of farms managed as one entity
•
farmstead, or household together with its associated landholding which,
because it is the basic production and consumption unit, PLEC recommends as
the primary focal point for the research work
•
a cluster of farmsteads or of households constituting a farming village
•
a set or cluster of villages covering a discernible sizeable area.
