CHAPTER 7. ENHANCING FORAGE SEED PRODUCTION IN SMALLHOLDER
7.2 Enhancing competitiveness of forage seed business
7.2.7 Farmer training and capacity building
Capacity building of small holder farmers has been seen as very important in recent years and many development organisations are valuing this aspect. This is through improving the level of education and skills, and empowering communities on health and nutrition. Capacity building contributes to alleviating poverty, besides infrastructure and technological development and in communities where they are poorly resourced, capacity building will be very important. Approaches that can be employed to enhance capacities among smallholder farmers include, participatory learning, activity- based learning, skills and knowledge sharing, field days, Farmer Field Schools (FFS), field demonstrations, field tours and exchange visits. All these help farmers to understand, practice and be able to replicate at their own time and area. Tsado et al., (2014), reiterates that trainings need to be frequent and focussed so that farmers continually improve on practices. Through hands-on learning, farmers are able to practice and share their skills with fellow farmers. Therefore there is need to encourage farmers to be peer teachers and to share knowledge.
It is believed that farmers participate in trainings when it is convenient for them and have seen potential benefits from the training (Ndou, 2012). Farmers need all the support in their agricultural activities so that they can improve on production, are up to date with technology advancement and can access goods and services. Therefore, research needs to include farmers by conducting on farm based research. Farm based research seeks to bridge the knowledge gap between researchers and the farmers who are on the ground. This will help in alleviating global hunger, especially among the rural population in many developing countries. In so doing, this will take into account farmers’
indigenous knowledge, skills and experiences, social dynamics and community cultural practices and beliefs. For example, in Zimbabwe there is a day (Chisi) in a week when community members
make it a custom not to go to work in the fields nor carry out operations like weeding and harvesting.
Each community chooses its own day of ‘Chisi’. On this day, farmers are free to carry on with other activities within the household or attend village meetings, including those that are agricultural related. It is the responsibility of the local leaders to enforce this and extension staff and development organisations need to be aware of such days within a community. Thus when researchers develop and design on farm work, they need to take note of rest days. Thus, it is necessary to include farmers in design of on-farm project interventions. In this way realistic implementation modalities can be formulated, including trainings and demonstrations to showcase interventions. Training approaches may include farm demonstrations, field days, field and exchange visits, farmer field schools and lead farmer approach. Methods of training also depend on farmers needs and expectations (Uzonna and Qijie, 2013) as these may also include videos, role plays, drama, film shows and group discussions.
However, despite all these training approaches that have been introduced, smallholder farmers continually remain poor and are unable to improve farm productivity.
According to Uzonna and Qijie, (2013) and Ndou, (2012), effectiveness of farmer trainings depend on a number of factors including the approach used at trainings, effectiveness of the facilitator, relevance of training to the audience, timeliness of the training and participants’ gender in relation to subject matter of the trainings. Farmers are known to research for information on their own, to verify what they will have been trained on and to look for further information. However, practically there are bound to be differences in the way farmers understand what they will have been trained on. This also results in variances on the effects these trainings might have on technology adoption and farmer behaviour.
Four principles are said to govern capacity building since this is a process and it is a long-term investment. These include:-
The promotion of inclusion of smallholder farmers in market-based approaches. This increases farmer participation for improved livelihood.
Creating an enabling environment for capacity building. Farmers will be free and able to participate.
Building on existing knowledge, skills and strengths of individual and local organisations.
These will in turn cascade their knowledge and skills to other farmers in the community.
This can be through lead-farmer approach or host farmer demonstrations.
Demand driven capacity building will be more relevant and sustainable. Only in instances where new technology is introduced that capacity building is initiated top-down.
Continuous improvement and innovation - There has been an increase in the use of participative approaches in agricultural activities especially those that make use of problem identification and needs assessment. This is because of insights into what farmers want and then focus on developing those interventions (Clark and Timms, 1999). The Continuous Improvement and Innovation (CI and I), initiated by Clark and Timms (1999), is a form of adult learning which looks at capacitating farmers and stakeholders so that they improve on identifying and prioritising needs, management practices, farm profitability , risk management and sustainability of farming enterprises (Figure 7.5).
This is through decision making, innovativeness, inclusivity, processes and practices. The CI and I also allows for reflection and redesign of activities. For forage seed business, especially in smallholder systems, in study sites, CI and I is very relevant and appropriate as it caters for all situations, including handling and overcoming challenges with the involvement of farmers, who are the beneficiaries from the processes. The CI and I processes involved are situation analysis, impact analysis, action design, implementing action plans, then assessing performance and finally reflection, synthesizing and redesigning if need be.
Figure 7.5: Continuous Innovation and Improvement. Source: Adapted from Clark and Timms (1999)