What should we expect from farmer field schools? A Sri Lanka case study
Introduction
Many agricultural development strategies of the past several decades have recognized that uniform technologies (that fueled the success of the Green Revolution) and a linear process of technology transfer (with standard messages delivered to farmers by an extension service) are not the answer for the majority of the world’s resource-poor farmers. Challenges to those simple models have come from several directions, including recognition of farmers’ roles and responsibilities in technology generation, understanding of the variation in farm household assets and strategies, and an appreciation of the need for better farmer organization. The result is a much broader range of methods and techniques directed toward improving smallholder productivity and welfare. However, there is always the danger that innovative strategies may be compromised when they become candidates for widespread replication. Such methods become part of the agricultural development lexicon, and they provide ready molds into which donors can pour the funds that must be dispersed in their next round of projects. Moreover, the reluctance of most donors to sponsor (or to consult) independent evaluations means that these innovations develop a life of their own, unimpeded by an examination of long-term outcomes. This paper examines Farmer Field Schools (FFS), one of the most noteworthy recent contributions to agricultural development practice. It asks what is known about past success and how this knowledge might be relevant to further applications.
FFS have a well-deserved reputation for successfully introducing Asian rice farmers to principles of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). In the 1990s, more than 75 000 FFS were conducted in Asia (Pontius, Dilts, & Bartlett, 2002). As a result of this experience, the term FFS is now widely used and the concept features in a growing range of settings. FAO, which took the lead in supporting FFS for IPM in Asia, is now promoting the concept of Integrated Production and Pest Management (IPPM) through FFS in a number of African countries (Okoth, Khisa, & Julianus, 2003). In the past few years, at least five major donors have funded 1 500 FFS in Kenya alone (Sones, Duveskog, & Minjauw, 2003). There are worldwide examples of the FFS approach being applied to programs in livestock health and production, soil fertility, community forestry, gender, HIV/AIDS prevention, and other topics (e.g., LEISA, 2003). The synthesis of a recent workshop on the subject featured a diagram showing a possible trajectory for FFS, with an arrow originating in rice IPM and traveling outwards through ever broader responsibilities in crop and resource management, eventually arriving at “advocacy,” “democracy,” and “life” (CIP-UPWARD, 2003). The FFS approach supports current interest in participation, empowerment, and decentralization for rural development, and it provides an attractive package for NGOs or donor projects to manage.
Practically the only dissonant note to be heard behind the chorus of support for FFS is in several recent studies funded by the World Bank that examine the economics of FFS and question their financial sustainability (Feder, Feder, Quizon). Based on an examination of data from the Philippines and Indonesia, the studies ask whether the degree of impact among participating and nonparticipating farmers can justify the costs of establishing and managing FFS projects. The fact that significant doubts are being raised (related to two flagship FFS projects) indicates the need for a more thorough examination of the impacts and potential of the FFS approach.
This paper cannot hope to comment on all of the variations of FFS that are currently on offer nor address the exceptional range of aspirations that are held for the concept. Such a broad analysis would be impossible in any case because of the paucity of hard data available regarding the performance and outcomes of most of the elaborations on the original FFS concept. Indeed, there is only a modest amount of data from Asian FFS, despite more than a decade of experience. Our approach is to use the results of a recent study of an FFS program in Sri Lanka, combined with a review of other literature (mostly from Asia), to comment on some of the basic premises and ambitions of the FFS concept. We believe that the data are sufficient to present some fairly robust conclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of the FFS approach. In particular, we focus on the degree to which FFS participants gain new skills, the type of farmer that participates in FFS, the transmission of skills to nonparticipants, the breadth of skills amenable to the FFS approach, and the degree to which FFS contributes to building social capital. Our aim is to contribute to the ability of donors and governments to support the most effective agricultural development strategies and to make decisions on the basis of accumulated experience rather than by simply following current fashion.
The paper is organized in the following manner: Section 2 briefly reviews the concepts of FFS and IPM. This is followed by an introduction to a study of FFS in Sri Lanka and an examination of the participants. The paper then reviews the results of the FFS and compares them to those of other studies. Further evidence from the Sri Lanka study is then used as the starting point to examine information transmission, the range of FFS objectives, and contributions to social capital. The paper concludes with some thoughts on how to take best advantage of the experience gained from FFS.
Section snippets
FFS and IPM
The FFS concept originated as an imaginative response to the overuse of insecticides in irrigated rice systems in Asia in the wake of the Green Revolution. Various IPM extension approaches were developed and tested to address the problem, and the FFS concept was initiated in Indonesia on a small scale in 1989–90 and then expanded (Kenmore, 1996, Röling and van de Fliert, 1994). The basis of the FFS is the belief that if farmers are to gain the confidence to lower dependence on insecticides,
The Sri Lanka study
The Sri Lanka Department of Agriculture (DOA), with support from FAO and other donors, ran a program of FFS for IPM in rice from 1995 to 2002 that included 610 FFS throughout the country.1 Our study was designed to understand the outcomes of that
The participants in FFS
FFS need to demonstrate that they can reach a wide range of farmers. The extent of FFS coverage will depend in part on the way that communities are targeted and in part on the type of farmer involvement; the latter is a function of the way the program is introduced and organized as well as farmers’ perceptions of the costs and benefits of participation.
In the Sri Lanka case, extension offices were supposed to target communities for FFS where insecticide use and/or pest problems were highest,
The results of the FFS program
Comparisons between participants, neighbors, and controls in the Sri Lanka study indicate a number of significant differences. Table 2 illustrates some of the most important of these. The FFS farmers made far fewer applications of insecticide than other farmers in the past season, as well as over several seasons. The difference was consistent across all sites. There is also evidence of gains in knowledge for the FFS farmers. They could name more natural enemies of harmful insects, were more
Other evidence of impact from FFS
The results of the study in southern Sri Lanka are compatible with a nationwide internal evaluation of the FAO IPM program which interviewed small groups of farmer participants from 275 FFS sites and farmers in 117 nearby nonparticipating villages and compared IPM with non-IPM site averages (van den Berg, Senerath, & Amarasinghe, 2002). The results showed that the FFS farmers made 81% fewer insecticide applications than the others.
Farmer-to-farmer knowledge transmission
It is well known that farmers often rely on their neighbors rather than on extension for information and advice. In many cases of the adoption of new inputs and techniques, other farmers are the most important source of information (e.g., Birkhaeuser, Evenson, & Feder, 1991). Thus, there is hope that even though FFS do not reach all farmers, the ideas and principles will be transmitted from graduates to other farmers. In some FFS programs, farmers have been specifically selected for
The content of FFS and alternative strategies
The selection of any strategy to improve farmers’ skills and knowledge requires a prior definition of goals. The FFS for IPM aims at providing farmers with the capacity to investigate agroecological relationships and to understand the rationale behind reducing pesticide dependence. Thus, when outcomes from such FFS are measured, both knowledge and practice are usually assessed and, as we have seen, FFS farmers often score better than nonparticipants on both counts. But making a connection
FFS and social capital
A further distinguishing feature of the FFS approach is the emphasis on group dynamics and collective action. The social learning aspect of FFS for IPM is certainly important, and it may be argued that group support and validation are crucial for developing the confidence to lessen dependence on insecticides (perhaps similar to the dynamics of Alcoholics Anonymous groups). There are also aspects of IPM that require group action (such as coordinating planting schedules), but the literature does
Conclusions
What should we expect from FFS? The evidence from this study indicates that FFS can contribute to a significant reduction in insecticide use by participants. Several other studies on FFS in Asian rice also show positive results, but the studies are not sufficiently numerous or consistent to offer unequivocal conclusions. On the other hand, even assuming high farm-level impact, the major investment in IPM for Asian rice has so far reached only a fraction of farmers. Although open to all farmers,
Acknowledgement
The research reported in this paper was funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), which is not responsible for any of the conclusions or interpretations. The authors gratefully acknowledge (without implicating) useful comments on earlier drafts of the paper by K. Gallagher, M. Richards, H. van den Berg, and J. Vos as well as the contributions of three anonymous reviewers. The fieldwork benefited from three dedicated enumerators: I.K. Ruwansiri, J.C. Ratnayake, and
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