Community Participation and the Integration of Agroecosystem Health and Sustainability Concerns into Practical Decision Making - Integrated Assessment of Health and Sustainability of Agroecosystems - page 63

two orthogonal transects were selected. Farm visits and semistructured interviews
(SSIs) of farm owners were incorporated into the transect walks. The farms to be vis-
ited were purposively selected from a list of households along each transect stratified
based on wealth, agricultural practices, natural resource endowment, and ownership.
Six to eight farms were selected for each transect route.
In the farm visits, owners or managers were requested to give a guided tour. Spe-
cial note was taken of the way the owner or manager categorized the various farm
enterprises. Farm sketches were made indicating use of the land resource and the
types of enterprises. Copies of farm records—if available—were made. A listing of
daily time utilization and work schedules of key members (farm owner, spouse, and
manager) was made. The owners or managers were asked to explain, in detail, the
nature, cause, and severity of existing constraints or problems. For the various farm
enterprises, they were asked to give the factors they took into consideration prior
to initiating them and what were the essential considerations for continuing those
activities. Table 3.2 shows the list of topics covered in the SSIs.

3.2.4.1 Participatory techniques

The rationale for applying these techniques was to enable communities to describe
their situation in details sufficient for the identification and description of problems,
issues, and concerns relating to the health and sustainability of their agroecosystem.
The primary consideration while selecting techniques for use in this study was that
many people in the communities are illiterate to semiliterate, and techniques that
involved reading and writing would result in inability (or unwillingness) of the major-
ity to participate in the workshops. The second consideration was that a significant
portion of the data came from unwritten formats (e.g., expert or witness statements)
and was mostly qualitative. Another consideration was the need for communities to
synthesize data into visual representations suitable for viewing and discussion. The
techniques used included mapping on the ground or paper; scoring and ranking;
interviewing; calendars; Venn diagramming; free listing and card sorting; linkage
diagramming; and group presentations and discussions (Chambers, 1994) as well as
structured direct observation (Kumar, 1993).

3.2.4.2 Participatory mapping

Participatory mapping was used to generate spatial representations of various char-
acteristics of the study sites as perceived by the participants and what they perceived
to be the boundaries of their community. These provided reference points for data
gathering, analyses, and planning in processes similar to those described by Kabutha
et al. (1993) and Rietbergen-McCracken and Narayan (1998). The maps were drawn
by a group of local participants either on the ground (using chalk, sticks, pebbles,
or other available materials) or on large sheets of paper. Two thematic maps were
drawn, the first (the resource map) showed the village boundaries and location of
various natural resources, while the second, termed the social map , showed social
factors such as location of various households. Various symbols were used in the