Adoption of Sustainable Agriculture Practices in ... - Horizont3000

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Dec 2010 Feb Mar July Aug Sept Exposure visits are organized for selected farmers. Some groups receive support in livestock & crop materials Exposure visits are organized for selected farmers. One of the WASIP groups is selected by the District administration as a Best performer and their village declared a Model Village for SA production as well as hygiene and sanitation. Farmers are working on their own to implement SA concepts. External evaluation is held Systematization Systematization 3 Analysis During the process of retrieving the history of the experience, the WASIP staff and beneficiary farmers identified critical elements of the methodology applied by the WASIP team. The critical elements included: Farmers pooling labour and working together The use of lead farmers Setting of implementation standards Establishing group competitions Providing training before input support to farmers Democratic selection of the two farmers per group Democratic selection of two CBEAs per group Extension and facilitation skills of the WASIP staff The use of experienced farmers Group strengthening These critical elements were discussed and analyzed in a participatory workshop with representatives of six selected groups. 3.1 Lessons learnt 3.1.1 Labour pooling and working together Having received sustainable agriculture (SA) training in contour construction and for water and soil conservation, the farmers realised a need for working together to implement some of the labour intensive activities. Individual farmers couldn‟t cope with making as many contour bands in their banana gardens when they worked on their own, even losing motivation. In order to make work easier and more effective, pooling of labour was adopted. Labour pooling involved farmers working on a rotation basis on each others gardens on selected days of the week. By-laws (establishment of laws limited to a particular groups operations) were developed and followed strictly. Group members sat regularly and developed work-plans or schedules indicating where to start, what to do and when to do it. Individual farmer prioritized the SA practice where she/he required labour support assistance from the rest of the team members. A committee was established to follow up the implementation process. Out of the 30 group members, clusters of five members were formed to reduce the rotation period to enable all 10
farmers in the group to benefit from the labour pooling. Although the initial plan was to help out in support for labour-intensive activities, with time another advantage of sharing experiences or skills on other SA concepts for banana production emerged. This included labour pooling also for tasks which are less labour intensive such as construction of ridges, spacing the matooke (bananas) plantation, mulching and application of organic manure. An additional advantage of labour pooling is that it increased group cohesion and mutual understanding among group members which later on became important for uniform adoption of SA concepts. The farmers pointed out that they got the idea for labour pooling when they worked together on the practices during group training. 3.1.2 Selection of lead farmers Sometimes after SA training, the WASIP trainers and the beneficiaries realised there were different levels of adoption of the different key SA practices. The WASIP team introduced the idea of identifying and electing lead farmers to spearhead implementation of specific SA practices. This idea was embraced after CBEAs undertook farmer training and realised that, much as they trained farmers, they needed support of other individuals to pass over the SA skills. Over time the lead farmer became a key segment of the programme to ensure better implementation and follow-up support to the farmers, besides the CBEAs. Farmer groups selected volunteers to become lead farmers. To qualify as a lead farmer, one had to have excelled in adopting a particular SA practice and/or had to be capable of sharing knowledge about the SA practice with other farmers. Lead farmers also must have enough time and be willing to support members of the group in adopting a particular SA practice. The lead farmers were identified for contour making, mulching and spacing the banana plantation as well as for the manufacture and application of organic manure. It is important to note that the lead farmers did not receive extra trainings. With time the roles of lead farmers became rotational where some groups chose to use members they considered weak in adopting a particular practice as lead farmer. This strategy was found to work among the groups, who used it as a means to support and encourage the weaker farmers to adopt a particular practice. On the other hand this would motivate the farmer to prove to the other members he/she can lead by working hard to embrace the practice. 3.1.3 Setting standards for everyone to follow Groups started to set standards for implementing the SA practices. This included general banana garden management, number of organic manure heaps and application of the manure, proper garden hygiene, number of vegetable gardens and the existence of a garden for root crops (e.g. cassava, for food security). Other standards also included improved home and household hygiene (clean latrine, establishing a hand-washing facility at latrine & bathshelters). This idea of setting implementation standards within groups was generated during SA training by the WASIP trainers who challenged the farmers to set implementation standards for their groups to enhance adoption of the SA practices. Farmers took up this idea, which was used to establish uniformity of production for all the group members as well as used to impress and entice neighbouring farmers to join the groups. Group members sat and agreed on which standards in SA practices to set for their groups. The visit by the experienced farmers from other programmes also contributed towards setting of and concretizing the standards. According to the information from the farmers, standards did not remain as initially set. Higher standards were set as farmers progressed in adoption of SA practices or after attending subsequent trainings in SA practices. Although adherence was voluntary, setting of standards led to some kind of competitive spirit amongst the group members and led to better adoption of the SA practices. Regular follow-up by lead farmers and regular review meetings acted as an encouragement. Farmers set a benchmark of excellence to be maintained by member, believing that they had good products to market collectively. 11
Page 1 and 2: Systematisation of Experiences “A
Page 3 and 4: 1 Context 1.1 National Context Ugan
Page 5 and 6: 1.5 Participants of the systematisa
Page 7 and 8: 2 Description of the process The se
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Page 13 and 14: 3.1.7 Democratic election of CBEAs
Page 15: led to closer farmer-to-farmer shar

Adoption of Sustainable Agriculture Practices in ... - Horizont3000

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