The challenge of HIV/AIDS: Where does agroforestry fit in? - World ...

64World Agroforestry into the Future3. Natural vegetative strips (NVSs)and Landcare, the PhilippinesThe upland municipality of Claveria islocated in northern Mindañao, the Philippines.Annual rainfall of 2 200 mm allowsa farming system of two maize crops peryear. However, with this high rainfall,coupled with cultivation of sloping fieldsand use of animal tillage, soil loss througherosion had degraded lands and led todeclining maize yields.Applied research began in 1985 oncontour hedgerow systems using nitrogenfixingtrees to minimize erosion, restoresoil fertility and improve crop productivity.But adoption of this system was slow, andmany hedgerows were abandoned owingto the high labour requirement to maintainthem, poor adaptation of leguminous treesto acid soils, and competition between thetrees and the maize crop.Development of the innovationThrough participatory on-farm experiments,ICRAF researchers concluded that theconcept of contour hedgerows remainedpopular and that farmers were concernedabout soil erosion and loss of productivity.Researchers observed that farmers oftenploughed along contour lines, leavingcrop residues and/or natural vegetation instrips between ploughed fields. The latterinnovation evolved into natural vegetativestrips (NVSs) and emerged as a crucial entrypoint for reversing land degradation onsloping fields.Over several years, the NVS technology,coupled with contour ploughing, spreadspontaneously among farmers. This innovativefarmer-based system and itscomponents were the subjects of intensiveon-farm research. Farmer innovations suchas the ‘cow’s back method’ (using the viewof the ox’s backbone when ploughing tomaintain a reasonable trajectory for layingout contour lines) were identified as acceptablealternatives to the more technical‘A-frame’ technique (ICRAF 1997). For thestrips, some farmers demonstrated interestin such cash crops as fruit, timber andcoffee; others preferred improved foddergrasses and legumes. In all cases, theseinnovations built on and enriched thefoundation of the NVSs.Scaling upWith the spontaneous visible spread ofNVSs in and around ICRAF’s applied researchsites, considerable interest emergedfrom communities, local and provincialgovernment agencies, and NGOs to learnmore about this innovation. In 1996, theCentre responded to communities’ requestsfor technical support and training by introducingand testing the appropriateness ofLandcare, a participatory, community-basedapproach from Australia involving the developmentof groups in partnership withlocal government to promote conservationfarmingpractices (Campbell and Siepen1994; Catacutan et al. 2001; Mercado et al.2001). Farmers’ interest led to the formationof the Claveria Landcare Association, whichhas emerged as the platform for widespreaddissemination of conservation farmingbased on NVSs. In 1999, Landcare wasextended to another ICRAF research sitein nearby Lantapan municipality, and by2002 there were an estimated 500 Landcaregroups, involving more than 15 000farmers in the Philippines.Comparing the key elementsof scaling upFarmer-centred research andextensionParticipatory research, in which farmersplay a critical role in the design, implementation,and evaluation of research, hasbeen shown to improve the effectiveness ofresearch and to reduce the time betweeninitial testing and uptake (CGIAR/PRGA1999).Farmers were involved in the early stagesof the development of technologies at allthree sites. In both Kenya and Zambia,researcher-led and farmer-led trials wereconducted simultaneously: the formerprimarily to assess biophysical response,the latter for socioeconomic assessment(Franzel et al. 2001b). Encouraging farmersto experiment with the new practicesas they wished led to new innovations andgreatly improved the practices at both sites– reducing costs, promoting adoption andmaking scaling up more rapid.In the Philippines, it was a farmer innovation– leaving crop residues along the contour,where they revegetate forming NVSs– that proved very popular. Researcherslater proved that these strips were effectivein controlling soil erosion and required littlemaintenance. The use of NVSs spreadrapidly and farmers continued to innovate(Mercado et al. 2001). Also, establishing along-term field presence in Claveria enabledresearchers to identify and validatefarmers’ innovations, such as the cow’sback method, and to help farmers adjustthe NVS system to better reflect their interests,in particular by introducing such cashgeneratingenterprises as timber and fruit.There was some variation in extensionstrategies among the three case studies.In Kenya, extension facilitators providedtraining to government extension and NGOstaff and representatives of village-basedfarmer development groups, resulting ina significant amount of farmer-to-farmerextension. A similar strategy was implementedin eastern Zambia, except that