Integrated Soil Water and Nutrient Management and Dry ... - Icrisat

to the majority of farmers, conducting training for transformation, and group
building. PAE is comparatively superior for farmer empowerment so that
farmers play a leading role in problem identification, selection and
implementation of most beneficial projects as a group, and helps them achieve
a feeling of project ownership for sustainability. Extension agents argued that
AREX should adopt PAE as the major extension approach for use in the field
and all staff members in the department receive training for implementing
PAE methods.
Sustaining and institutionalizing Farmer Field Schools
The FFS and PAE piloted to date have been mostly supported by donor funds.
This raises the question of how FFS can be sustained and scaled out and up
after withdrawal of donor funds. The government budgetary allocations to
extension services are declining in real terms such that extension agents cannot
operate effectively. At the same time there has been a decline in donor support
and private sector funding. Poor salaries and working conditions are resulting
in declining staff morale, loss of staff to the private and NGO sectors, and loss
of community respect. There have also been substantial public extension staff
losses resulting from HIV/AIDS. Yet, at the same time, the demand for
extension services means they have to provide more services especially to
newly resettled farmers. How can AREX expand FFS in order to meet the
rapidly growing demand for extension services and generate more impact in
existing smallholder with dwindling resources?
Focus group discussions and farmer and extension interviews showed
that there are three areas of leverage with significant potential to replicate FFS
and make them sustainable. The first is reallocating the annual budgets for
national extension programs at the provincial levels to directly support FFS.
AREX recognizes FFS as one of the main extension approaches for providing
services to smallholders. But performance appraisals for field extension
officers emphasize MF training as a key result area. A key objective for each
field officer is “to recruit 100 Ordinary Master Farmers at the beginning of the
year and continue to provide effective training services to old trainees by
slavishly adhering to the AGRITEX MF curriculum throughout the year”
(AGRITEX 2001). Extension officer interviews revealed that the MF
approach needs to be revamped to make it more farmer-driven, permit
farmers to choose their syllabus and how they want to be trained, assess the
performance of old graduates and new trainees, and improve its relevance to
farmer needs. Because the provincial budgets are now activity- and
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