A public mobilization approach known as nikinake drives implementation and technology upscaling in Ethiopia's agricultural extension. This study investigates and describes the processes and effectiveness of nikinake as an extension method used for natural resource management (NRM). The paper draws on empirical field research conducted in Oromia and the southern region of Ethiopia by looking at nikinake in the context of a watershed management campaign in 2015 and 2016. Nikinake is used as an approach to mobilize the public and to promote the skills of farmers and development actors. In principle, the implementation of NRM is voluntary; however, it is largely planned top‐down and enforced through state actors and informal institutions. This study suggests effective integration of social mobilization with reliable extension and a paradigm shift in emphasis from spatial coverage to an effective outcome. Additionally, sustainability and scalability of NRM interventions could be ameliorated by improving experts’ technical skills, raising farmers’ awareness, improving an incentive system, building trust, and better integrating past watershed management and future planning activities. We reflect on the significance of the nikinake experience in Ethiopia for a broader theory of extension‐as‐mobilization for rural development. From the Ethiopian case, a more general recommendation emerges for extension‐as‐mobilization schemes. For long‐term development, it is worthwhile to consider the fit between yearly campaigns as ad hoc project organizations and the existing pattern of actors and institutions responsible for rural development.
Purpose -Ethiopia operates a large agricultural extension service system. However, access to extensionrelated knowledge, technologies and agricultural inputs is unequally distributed among smallholder farmers. Social learning is widely practiced by most farmers to cope with this unequal distribution though its practices have hardly been documented in passing on knowledge of agriculture and rural development or embedding it into the local system of knowledge production, transfer and use. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to identify the different methods of social learning, as well as their contribution to the adoption and diffusion of technologies within Ethiopia's smallholder agricultural setting.Design/methodology/approach -A mixed methods approach was used, comprising farmer and expert interviews, focus group discussions, informal individual discussions and key informant interviews. The data were documented, coded and later analyzed using SPSS and ATLAS.ti.Findings -The findings showed that 55 per cent of the farmers in the studied areas fully relied on social, community-level learning to adopt agricultural technologies, while 35 per cent of them relied on social learning only partly. Farmers acquired knowledge through social networks by means of communication, observation, collective labor groups, public meetings, socio-cultural events and group socialization. Informal institutions such as iddir, debo and dado, helped farmers learn, adopt and diffuse technologies. Originality/value -This study used the concept of epistemic oppression by Dotson (2014) as a conceptual framework to examine farmers' access to extension services and to analyze how informal institutions serve as workplace learning for the smallholder farmers. The authors suggest community-level social learning serves This study is part of the interdisciplinary research project "Improving Food Security in Africa through increased System Productivity of Biomass-based Value Webs" (BiomassWeb, see www. biomassweb.org) at the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, under the Work Package 7.1: Follow the Innovation -Collective Learning, Change Adaptation and Transition Management in Ethiopia. BiomassWeb is financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), for which the authors are grateful. The first author extends his gratitude to the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) for hosting during the write-up phase. The authors are also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers' comments that helped them to enrich the paper.
Agricultural extension is an approach to rural development and agricultural transformation in which training, demonstration and technology transfer are key to reducing rural poverty, ensuring food security, and sustainably managing natural resources. During recent decades, different extension approaches have been tested and validated by the Ethiopian government and nongovernmental organizations to stimulate participation in the agricultural extension system (AES). The most recent was a German-funded project entitled "Integrated Soil Fertility Management Project" (ISFM +), which employed a novel approach to piloting and upscaling proven technology and best practice. The purpose of this study was to analyze and document the modalities of ISFM + and illustrate its effects on technology uptake and dissemination. The study used a mixed methods approach to collect data. ATLAS.ti and SPSS were used for data management and analysis. Farmer Research and Extension Groups and Farmer Field Schools were found to be central to the participation process. Also, the ISFM + was found to aid technology transfer and helped to increase grain and residue yields as well as farmer livelihoods. Based on these empirical findings, it is argued that the ISFM + approach and technology should be integrated and institutionalized in the mainstream AES in order to promote their extensive application.
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