Circles and Communities, Sharing Practices and Learning: Looking at New Extension Education Approaches

Cristóvão, Artur; Ferrão, Paulo; Madeira, Rui Neves; Tibério, Manuel Luís; Rainho, Maria José; Teixeira, Mário Sérgio

doi:10.1080/13892240902909122

Cited by 16 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…In addition, the lack of participation of target groups in all stages of agricultural program leads to its failure or low adoption (Douglah and Sicilima 1997). Therefore, the success of agricultural program requires the cooperation among farmers, extension agents, scientists and other stakeholders (Cristóvão et al 2009) and the farmers' knowledge and experience should be taken into consideration (Lioutas et al 2010). Farmers should participate in the program design and have the rights to set up their own goals and outcomes (Roberts 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors influencing farmers' participation in crop intensification program in Rwanda

Nahayo

Omondi

Zhang

et al. 2017

Journal of Integrative Agriculture

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The crop intensification program (CIP) was introduced in Rwanda in 2007 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) as a solution to the land fragmentation, low use of agricultural inputs and low access to extension services. However, due to the voluntary nature of farmers' participation and their reluctance to participate, this study aimed at assessing the factors that influence their participation. Data were collected from 340 respondents through a household survey in Mayange and Rusarabuye sectors. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression model were used to analyze the data. Results show that the factors that significantly influenced the farmers' participation in the CIP include gender, non-farm income, farmland size, farming experience, land acquisition means, market access, trust and agro-ecological conditions. In fact, the non-farm income significantly increased the farmers' decisions to participate in the CIP (P<0.001) as it eases the financial capital needed to invest in the CIP activities. On the land acquisition means, the farmers who inherited or bought the land positively and significantly participated in the CIP (P<0.05) because they had the land tenure security. However, the participation in the CIP was hindered by inadequate irrigation and mechanization facilities, lack of farmers' participation in the CIP planning process, inadequate extension services, inadequate agricultural inputs and inadequate postharvest technologies. Closer collaboration between farmers, local leaders, extension agents and agricultural service providers as well as the farmers' practical skills in irrigation and mechanization could enhance the participation to the program. Therefore, there is a need on the part of policymakers to empower farmers with adequate knowledge on better cropping practices and agricultural technologies through appropriate extension services and bottom-up based program.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors influencing farmers' participation in crop intensification program in Rwanda

Nahayo

Omondi

Zhang

et al. 2017

Journal of Integrative Agriculture

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“…Despite Oakley et al's (1991) argument that the 'withdrawal' dimension implies a conscious move on the part of the facilitator/change agent along with the empowerment of local actors to undertake his/her role, as shown by Cristóvão et al (2008) the withdrawal of 'external', that is, project supported facilitators results in the termination of such work in the localities concerned. Moreover, the dilemma of 'top-down' vs. 'bottom-up' roles of an intermediary should be pointed out, a theme extensively dealt with in participation literature addressing the obstacles to participation and especially the 'expert syndrome' (see for example, Botes and van Rensburg 2000;Cooke and Kothari 2001;Quaghebeur, Masschelein, and Huong Nguyen 2004).…”

Section: Editorialmentioning

confidence: 81%

Editorial

Koutsouris¹,

Cristóvão²

2014

The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension

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“…The importance of learning through shared practice is emphasized in many studies (Schad et al ., ; Cristóvão et al ., ). In all the cases presented, the strategies to create conditions for experiential learning (Kolb, ) were different: farmer experiment in Ethiopia, collective experiment in Mozambique and simulation in Tunisia.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Engaging Farmers in a Research Project. Lessons Learned from Implementing the Community of Practice Concept in Innovation Platforms in Irrigated Schemes in Tunisia, Mozambique and Ethiopia

Dolinska

Oates

Ludi

et al. 2018

Irrigation and Drainage

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The role of smallholder farmers in multi‐stakeholder innovation platforms and thus in the innovation process that these platforms facilitate is typically limited. The EAU4Food project, aimed at increasing food production in irrigation schemes in Africa through improved farming strategies, used a platform design inspired by the community of practice (CoP) concept, which opened up space for farmers' interactive learning and enabled their active participation in the innovation process. In this article we present examples of how this approach has been implemented in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Tunisia. We analyse the level of farmers' participation that was achieved at different stages of the implementation process, namely: deciding how to set up the CoP, identifying innovation needs and conducting the experiment. Among different strategies deployed by EAU4Food researchers, working with dialogue groups, engaging farmers in data interpretation and passing the responsibility over elements of the research process to farmers, proved to be the most effective in strengthening farmers' involvement. The use of a simulation game to test innovations also showed promising results and should be explored further. The attitude of researchers proved to be an important factor in achieving a high level of farmers' engagement in the project. Copyright © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Circles and Communities, Sharing Practices and Learning: Looking at New Extension Education Approaches

Cited by 16 publications

References 4 publications

Factors influencing farmers' participation in crop intensification program in Rwanda

Factors influencing farmers' participation in crop intensification program in Rwanda

Editorial

Engaging Farmers in a Research Project. Lessons Learned from Implementing the Community of Practice Concept in Innovation Platforms in Irrigated Schemes in Tunisia, Mozambique and Ethiopia

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