cases from tanzania - Sustainet

5 Scaling up
• Experienced extension staff Sustainable agriculture skills are still relatively rare among
extension staff. It is possible to take advantage of the valuable skills of the scarce few by
having them train and coordinate the activities of less-experienced staff, provide them
with transport so they can cover a wider area, and rotate them from one area to another
so that they can work with as many different staff and farmers as possible.
• Students Some sustainable agriculture organizations are based at training institutions.
They arrange for college students to visit farmers, work with them for a day and give
them advice.
• Exhibitions or fairs The organization, or a farmer group or association, arranges
events where farmers can meet, exchange information, and buy, sell or barter seeds and
other inputs.
challenges
Quantitative scaling up faces various challenges and constraints.
• Inadequate funds Serving more people, distributed over a wider area, inevitably requires
more funds. Many activities to promote sustainable agriculture are organized on
a project basis: funds are limited, and they are available only for a few years. When the
funding runs out, the organization must find more funding to support the expansion
of support to new areas, and to continue support for areas already served. Understanding
donors are often willing to make funds available to support successes, but they also
have limitations on the amount of money they can assign. Sustainet partners respond by
seeking low-cost ways of spreading their messages to as many other people as possible
– for example through networking and collaboration, awareness creation and community
mobilization.
• Voluntarism of resource persons Many of the people who promote sustainable agriculture
are highly motivated, but get paid little or nothing for their efforts. This works
well in the short term, and on the small scale. But it is not sustainable in the longer term
or on a broader scale – even the most enthusiastic supporters need to feed themselves
and their families, and serving larger areas means that they can spend less time attending
to their own farms. Possible solutions include boosting government funding or seeking
financial contributions from the villagers who benefit from the services.
• HIV/AIDS The disease has devastated rural East Africa, killing or debilitating the
most productive people in the society, young adults. Some sustainable agriculture techniques
(for example, weeding, applying compost) require more labour than conventional
farming. This is especially the case for building soil and water conservation structures.
In many families and villages, there are not enough able-bodied young people to do the
necessary work. Fortunately, some forms of sustainable agriculture – such as conservation
agriculture – reduce the amount of labour required, so are ideally suited for families
afflicted by the disease. In addition, sustainable agriculture produces a range of crops,
resulting in a rich and varied diet, which helps people with AIDS fight the infection.
• Socio-cultural barriers Farmers are rightly sceptical of outsiders who come to tell
them how to farm better. After all, they have been able to survive using their current
practices, as did their parents and grandparents before them. They are also resistant to
major shifts in practices, such as stall-feeding livestock that used to graze freely. They
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