Conservation agriculture Tanzania_casestudy.pdf - Sokoine ...

Contact farmersIn 1996, ARI Uyole used contact farmers to introduce conservation agriculture.These farmers were good agricultural performers, averaging one contact farmerout of 150 farmers. Contact farmers would be individually trained on a test plotwithin their own fields; neighbours were free to attend. This approach automaticallydiscriminated against youths and poor farmers, who felt shy to attend or wouldnot talk about lower-cost technology. However, the few innovative farmers at anequal income and status were able to use the new concepts for their own farms.Researchers and extension reached few farmers with this approach.Gender considerations were not spelled out. The male-dominated system madewomen the natural minority, less than 20%. Women’s concerns in the technologywere not taken fully into account.Farmer research groupsFarmer research groups were an improvement over the contact farmer approach.The 10–20 farmers were required to work as a group on deciding what implements,cover crops, and combinations should be tested, daily managing the trial andevaluating the different interventions. Gender issues were built in, with groupusually having 30% women. Women’s opinions were actively sought.Training and demonstrations were conducted on individual farmer’s fields with othergroup members attending. All group members would move from one farmer’s test plotto another’s and discuss the positive and negative plot performance using a checklist.Farmer field schoolsFarmer field schools were the latest approach by the URT, FAO, FARM Africaand ARI Uyole projects. The field school would have 15–20 households with acommon interest form a group. Women’s participation was required to be no lessthan 40%. As with the farmer research groups, access (not ownership) to oxen was adiscriminatory condition for participation. Emphasis was placed on lessons learnedshared with all household members, men, women and youth, and a household mustbe represented by at least one member in all group sessions.The field schools had 0.5–1-ha test plots where all the conservation agriculturetraining was done, step by step, on the work to be accomplished at the time. Thegroup met regularly, usually once a week during the peak season, to do activitiesplanned in the previous week, respond to emergencies, assess how the day’s activitiescould have been done better and plan for the next week. Sessions would last 1–3hours. The farmer field schools were supervised by the village agricultural extensionofficer or a farmer trained in field school facilitation.On farmer field days researchers and extension officers were invited to discussconservation agriculture concepts, challenges, opportunities and technology. Threeto five treatments, covering tilling and planting equipment, cover crops and soilcover would be identified for testing. Paper forms would be designed to recordsupplies, costs, revenue and facilitate economic analysis.128 Mkomwa et al.