Sustaining Livelihoods through Organic Agriculture in Tanzania - UMB

3. To plan actions at the individual levels and institutional levels, disseminate
findings through a press conference.
The first objective was pursued through presentations and individual and group work.
A guided visioning was undertaken in order to create a shared vision for the future of
the organic sector. At its simplest level, a shared vision is the answer to the question:
‘what do we want to create?’ (Senge, 1990). Visions may also be conceived as
‘powerful mental images of what we want to create in the future. They reflect what
we care about the most, and are harmonious with our values and sense of purpose’
(Parker, 1990). Thus visioning leads to a workable and purposeful shared alternative
to an existing system. Liu (1994: 114) states that ‘there is no better incentive or
motivation for a group than to have a general vision of its situation, to get a glimpse
of a desirable future, and to experience the start of mastering its own development’.
The final activity, development of strategies, took place through the individual and
then group formulation of action plans around specific challenges and themes. The
press conference was designed in a participatory way, and ended up being a panel of
six speakers representing different stakeholder groups followed by a question-andanswer
session. Nine journalists attended resulting in two articles, four radio bulletins
and coverage on local television.
4.12 Digesting the findings
An analytic strategy was formulated in order to prioritise what to analyse, why and
how. With regards to the case studies it was decided to analyse information relating to
organic agriculture as a livelihood strategy including the different forms of capital
assets and the sustainability of the system. The principle of “optimal ignorance” was
adopted in order to analyse only what is necessary in order to understand the role of
organic agriculture in improving livelihoods, and thus there was a focus on the facts
necessary for improving the systems, and inputs to strategies and plans of action.
The key aspect of qualitative data analysis is that the material itself should speak and
determine the structure of the data presentation. In-depth interviews were analysed
using a bottom-up procedure whereby the material and key quotes was marked and
labelled, and arranged into groups. This yielded relevant statements, viewpoints and
insights. For the large part soft quantification was used (e.g. referring to all, most of,
several, a few rather than exact figures).
Various coding procedures were used to generate descriptions and themes from the
data collected during the CSR. Codes were affixed to field notes from observation and
interviews. Information derived from the case studies was categorised and tabulated
according to the SL framework and different models of sustainability and farming
systems. Information arrays and data displays were used for organising and
summarising the evidence. This information was then used to address the initial
propositions. The emphasis of case study analysis was on explanation building and
there was constant reference to the original purpose of the enquiry and possible
alternative explanations.
On-going reflection was also part of the analysis, and reflections and other remarks
were continuously noted in the margins of fieldwork notebooks. After isolating
patterns, processes, commonalities and differences, for example when building the
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