Seeing below the surface: making soil processes visible to Ugandan smallholder farmers through a constructivist and experiential extension approach

Pincus, Lauren; Ballard, Heidi L.; Harris, Emily; Scow, Kate M.

doi:10.1007/s10460-017-9836-2

Cited by 17 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…In this scenario, according to the interviewed SENAR/MT representative, the role of educational and agricultural representative institutions is key to enabling soybean producers to deal with new technologies, climate change, market and business management and to empower them to become more active agents within the supply chain, similarly observed by other studies (Zamora et al, 2017;Magrini et al, 2018;Pincus et al, 2018). Thus, as observed during fieldwork, the professionalization and entrepreneurship required by producers to survive in a competitive market sometimes drains the producer's resources and time away from the land.…”

Section: Sectorial Actions To Cope With Grain Quality and Technologicsupporting

confidence: 55%

The Soybean Trap: Challenges and Risks for Brazilian Producers

Silva

Batistella

Moran

et al. 2020

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Since the 1970s, Brazilian soybean production has grown rapidly, driven by increasing national and international demand and rising prices. Consequently, soybean production has come to be perceived as an attractive opportunity, with the number of farms producing soybean across the country reaching around 240,000 in 2017. However, producers can become trapped by dependencies on moneylenders, traders and input supply companies, facing so-called' agricultural treadmills'. In this study we undertook interviews with individual soybean producers and representatives of trader companies, producers' associations, the processing industry, government and civil society, and used these data to analyze rural production operations related to the soybean supply chain and to interpret how agricultural treadmills persist in this sector. Based on literature review and fieldwork interviews, we found that producers have been able to add value to their products, but some strategies they use to cope with production costs lead them into high-risk situations. Our findings show that, sectoral (e.g., producers' associations) and collective actions (e.g., farmers' buying groups) are a useful strategy for producers to gain influence and bargaining power against transnational companies and input suppliers compared to acting as an individual within the soybean supply chain. Producers were emphatic that the current soybean business is now much more than just farming activities, and that education and training are highly valuable and important strategies to keep producers in the soybean business and out of traps. These findings are important given the neoliberal context in which individual producers find themselves and which presents challenges that alone they can do little to change. Policies that enable individual producers to make environmentally-and financially-sound agricultural decisions are vital to ensure a sustainable soybean system that does not trap producers in endless cycles of debt and investment.

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Section: Sectorial Actions To Cope With Grain Quality and Technologicsupporting

confidence: 55%

The Soybean Trap: Challenges and Risks for Brazilian Producers

Silva

Batistella

Moran

et al. 2020

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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“…In rural settings, many scholars consider experiential learning as a pertinent feature of learning approaches to enhance farmers' capacity to effectively deal with various complex farming problems (Leeuwis 2004;Percy 2005;Pincus et al 2018;Roberts 2006). Consequently, experiential learning has been widely applied as a theoretical basis for extension interventions in the context of adult learning (Leeuwis 2004;Roberts 2006).…”

Section: Experiential Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining experiential and social learning approaches for crop disease management in a smallholder context: a complex socio-ecological problem

Tafesse

Mierlo

Leeuwis

et al. 2020

Socio Ecol Pract Res

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Effective management of crop diseases is a key precondition for sustainable crop production and to improve food security globally. However, learning approaches that improve smallholder farmers’ knowledge, perceptions, and practices to deal with crop diseases by fostering social and technical innovations are seldom studied. A study was conducted to examine: (1) how a combination of experiential and social learning approaches influences potato farmers’ knowledge, perceptions, and practices in bacterial wilt and its management in Ethiopia and (2) the implications of combining the two approaches for complex crop disease management in smallholder context. Data were derived from face-to-face in-depth interviews, reflective workshops, and participant observations. The findings showed that farmers’ knowledge and perceptions about disease incidence, the pathogen that causes the disease, its spreading mechanisms, host plants, and disease diagnosis were changed. Farmers’ practices in management of the disease were also improved. Learning about the cause of the disease stimulated the identification of locally relevant spreading mechanisms and the feasibility of a range of recommended disease management methods. Moreover, farmers recognized their interdependency, role, and responsibility to cooperate to reduce the disease pressure in their community. We conclude that learning interventions aiming to improve smallholder farmers’ knowledge, perceptions, and practices to deal with complex crop diseases need to combine experiential and social learning approaches and consider farmers’ local knowledge.

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“…Studies from Cameroon ( Kome et al, 2018 ), Rwanda ( Kuria et al, 2019 ), South Africa ( Buthelezi-Dube et al, 2020 ) and Uganda ( Pincus et al, 2018 ) show that highland farmers have good knowledge of soil health indicators. Farmers’ indicators of soil health such as soil colour, texture, consistency, moisture, organic matter, workability, structure, depth and temperature ( Barrera-Bassols and Zinck, 2003 ) can enhance or hinder their adoption of recommended soil conservation measures, depending on whether they consider such measures to be beneficial in maintaining or changing the soil health.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%