Participatory Research and Development

ASE has been involved in participatory action research in the last five years. Its role in supporting farmers’ research work has indeed significantly enhanced the capacities of farmers, especially of the members of the farmers field school, to make the most of what is readily available to them. The new strategy calls for a more systematic engagement in identifying farmer innovators and supporting participatory innovation development. The following are the types of participatory research approaches that could contribute to the empowerment of farmers.

Farmer innovation led: This approach is all about being able to identify and characterise farmers’ innovations. CoLF members, with support from ASE’s staff, will be involved in this exercise, and the community group will have to set the agenda for the research. Each CoLF should handle a few selected innovation cases. Participatory innovation development will be the approach used to work on the selected local innovations. The CoLF will have access to the community innovation and the development fund that ASE will avail to the CBIs.

Problem led:  The CoLF, again with some help from ASE’s staff, will conduct a survey to identify those problems that have no clear, indigenous-sourced or research-based solutions, but seriously limit the production and proper utilisation of resources. Such problems call for participatory research by extension workers and researchers. To that end, the CoLF must be able to set a few but important research agenda items that can be handled at the local level. It is also important to have a woreda-level platform, whereby the members thereof can come together and discuss, and learn about, the most important research topics for the woreda. For example, if trypanosomiasis is a common problem to the whole woreda, each CoLF may run its own research activity at the kebele level, but the representatives of the kebele CoLF will have to meet at the woreda platform (every three months) to discuss progress and take back home new ideas for further trials. The woreda-level platform must handle one important research agenda at any one time. Researchers and concerned experts should be invited to attend these important meetings.

Outsiders’ idea/technology led: This s a logical follow-up of the exposure visit of the CoLF members to those places where new technologies or ideas are available (research centres, technology multiplication centres, private farms, fellow farmers, etc.). Those ideas or technologies, which farmers are most impressed by, will be subjected to a participatory test in the CoLF meetings. This is a participatory adoption trial, whereby farmers will be acquainted with various technologies and ideas, so that they will subsequently adopt whatsoever they deem appropriate to them. This approach is different from the technology transfer model where farmers are told to adopt technologies without being exposed to them.  

Apart from the above-described approaches to participatory research, ASE should adopt the following strategic elements that may help to facilitate the process more effectively.

Organising farmers’ innovation fair: ASE believes that identifying farmer innovators and acknowledging their innovations by giving them prizes and publicising what they have innovated is crucially important not only to encourage them to keep up the good work, but also to encourage others to do everything they can to realise their potentialities in this regard. ASE also believes that it should do the same for the extension workers and local policymakers and other staff, who are keen to identify farmer innovators, as well as to promote and give them the support they need. ASE is convinced that such acknowledgements go a long way to promote innovativeness among farmers and that more innovative farmers will come forth as a result at every innovation fair. The innovation fair will also present the farmers with an opportunity to learn from one another. It will also be an event where policymakers can see for themselves what farmers and extension workers will be able to do if given some support. Last but not least, the event will help create a linkage between researchers and farmers/farmers’ organisations (CBIs). The linkage in turn could lead them to enter into a new contract for further research work on some of the important agendas. 

Establishing a database centre at the woreda level: ASE should strengthen the capacity of the woreda offices of agriculture and help them to identify local innovations and establish a database centre of their own. Establishing a database centre is not an end in and of itself. But it should be able to encourage the office of agriculture to put research agendas on the tables of the nearby research institutions. This will create an entry point to exercise demand-led (at the woreda level) research projects. The woreda office of agriculture should also use the database centre as a source of information and, based on the information it obtains therefrom, prepare posters, brochures, leaflets, etc. so as to share some of the local innovations that are worth-sharing. ASE, for its part, can use such a database centre to initiate a higher-level participatory research, such as the one it is currently undertaking on rabies, in collaboration with the Ethiopian Health Nutrition Research Institute. The staff members of the FTC should be trained in the concepts of farmers’ innovation. To that end, ASE should provide the woreda office of agriculture with the necessary facilities, such as personal computers.

Making innovation-supporting funds available at the local level:ASE will commit some of its own resources to make innovation funds available at the local level through the CIDF. But it will do so only on a temporary basis. For the long term, ASE will have to exert much effort towards institutionalising innovation funds at the woreda level. ASE can make use of various techniques to do so. One of these is organising an innovation fair and experience-sharing visits for woreda officials. Another and more effective technique is entering into a partnership agreement with the woreda office of agriculture and rural development, in such a way that all the innovation fund will be made available by ASE in the first year, 25% by the local government and 75% by ASE in the second year, 50-50 in the third year, 75% by the local government and 25 % by ASE in the fourth year, and thereafter 100% of it by the local government. 

Tracking the impacts of the participatory research:The purpose of promoting local innovations is to attain sustainable livelihood, with particular reference to agriculture and natural resources management. Local innovation normally results in low cost, but effective technology for improving agricultural production, utilisation, marketing, etc. Most importantly, farmers’ capacities to address challenging situations on their own, with little or no outside help, will be enhanced; they will develop the self-confidence needed to say, “Yes, I can” and throw one’s weight behind such endeavours; their resources and knowledge, too, will increase as a result. This approach will definitely have a positive effect on the research and extension systems put in place, in terms of making the agencies more responsive to the needs of smallholder farmers. ASE, for its part, will do a close and systematic follow-up on all these impacts and then do a cost-benefit analysis thereon.   

Social research with farmers:ASE will encourage its staff as well as university students and staff of other research organisations to carry out social research on agriculture, health, natural resources, extension, education, participatory learning, institution building, innovation, etc. ASE will do so by at first impressing upon them the need for upholding the general principles of the "participatory approach". These, of course, provide for the end users of the outcome of any research work to have a stake in the research process as well as to be the main beneficiaries thereof. When the need arises, ASE can launch nationwide social research projects, in collaboration with others. The theme of the research must, however, fall under its core functions for it to do so. All social researches that are to be conducted by ASE staff or by outsiders whom it will have to commission must at first get reviewed, approved, registered and documented. ASE should, of course, allocate the budget necessary to undertake such research work. The committee that will review such research projects will have to ascertain that, if properly implemented, they (the research projects) will generate information and knowledge that can be immediately utilised by ASE and/or the farming community it is trying to empower. ASE has developed guidelines to participatory research. So they will have to be strictly adhered to, as long as their provisions do not, in any way, contravene the general principles discussed herein above.

Documentation and sharing:ASE must document all research work systematically. And an annual review of the farmers' research projects should be conducted at the woreda level—in the presence of the farmers who were involved in the research project. Experts, researchers and policymakers should also be invited to attend the event.  The outcome of the review process has to be documented in various forms (books, ASE’s website, other websites, videos, popular journals, etc.). ASE should also share its experiences in this regard with other institutions through such networks as PROFIEET. Extra care must, nevertheless, be taken to make sure that the intellectual property rights of farmers and other experts are safeguarded against plagiarism.