Training of Trainers - Library - Network of Aquaculture Centres in ...

As conventional approaches such as workshops, mass media and publications are well understood, they will notbe covered in great detail here. Instead, we will mainly focus some alternative approaches to improvingcommunications and networking that can help you make the most of limited staff or budget resources. We will alsoconsider ways you can help farmers to help each other more effectively. Practically speaking, there are a lot moreof them than there are of you so empowering farmers to help each other may be a lot more productive than tryingto help them yourself.Work with farmer associations and clusters“People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one anotherthan from vendors.” – The Cluetrain Manifesto.Working with farmer associations and clusters (or helping them to form cooperative groups) is an approach thathas demonstrated excellent potential as a mechanism to facilitate dissemination and adoption of BMPs, bothwithin and between farmer communities. In India, MPEDA in cooperation with NACA, the Indian Council ofAgricultural Research (ICAR), the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and the Foodand Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has provided support to bring clusters of shrimp farmerstogether into cooperative associations to implement better management practices (BMPs) as part of projects onshrimp health and coastal zone management. The groups, locally known as “aquaclubs”, were initially establishedto engage farmers in the development of locally appropriate BMPs and to demonstrate and promote theadvantages of working as a group to plan their crops. The group collectively manages common resources such asthe water supply, thus reducing inter-farm interference, reducing the impact of disease and substantiallyincreasing survival, size, yield and price received for the crop. Similar approaches have been applied in Vietnam.The benefits of collaborative farmer groups include that they:• Provide a strong mechanism for farmer-to-farmer learning and “self help”.• Serve as focal points for extension services, leveraging the accessibility and impact of better farmersand available extension staff among small-scale producers. It’s easier to deal with small scale farmersas groups rather than individuals.• Provide a mechanism for rapid implementation of new technologies or BMPs across the group, suchas food safety directives from export markets or traceability systems.• Provide economies of scale in purchasing technical services, such as the testing of seed for healthproblems, which in turn facilitates the access of small-scale farmers to these services; provide amechanism for self-regulation, as there is considerable economic incentive and peer pressure forfarmers to participate and comply with the groups’ management principles.• Provide increased market power in negotiating prices for inputs and for the sale of the harvest.• Are self-sustaining – as there are considerable economic benefits from farmer collaboration they maybe independent of government support and maintained by the farmers themselves.Farmer associations have good potential in situations where farmers have a strong common interest and canbenefit from working together, for example in the procurement of inputs or the management of shared naturalresources. Aquaclubs will be covered in more detail in a separate lecture.Establish ‘one-stop shops’Farmer groups can also be linked to structures that facilitate sharing of experience or access to outsideknowledge. Research reported in academic journals, often in English, is an important step to sharing newaquaculture knowledge and technology but has little development impact in itself. As a consequence there isincreasing interest in “Research into Use” programmes. A particular communications and learning challenge is theexchange of learning with and among poor people who farm in rural areas.84