Phase 1 FSA trainingModule 6: Participatory technology dissemination

6.1.Innovation of the Tanzanian agricultural sector: state of affairs and challenges

6.2.Evolution in the perception of agricultural extension and technology dissemination

6.3.The process of technology dissemination: linear and participatory approaches

6.4.The social organisation of innovation processes: actors and linkages

6.5.Future outlook of technology dissemination systems and coalitions

6.6.Bridging the gap between research and extension in Tanzania

Module 6Participatory technology dissemination,

networking and collaboration

Objectives

At the end of this module you will:

  1. Have discussed why technology dissemination often fails, what problems are encountered and what could be done improve the situation
  2. Understand the origin of the terms extension and dissemination and the evolution in the thinking about it.
  3. Be able to distinguish linear and participatory approaches to extension and technology dissemination.
  4. Understand the 'beyond farmer first' discussion and know new terminologies used (PTDD, scaling up, uptake pathways, entry points, AKIS and networking for innovation)
  5. Have discussed the RAAKS toolbox that can be used to do actor, communication network and dissemination impact analysis.
  6. Be able to give an overview of the different actors in dissemination processes and to define different kinds of functional linkages between these actors and the end users of technology.
  7. Have discussed variations in service delivery in rural areas and have understood why this is important to analyse and to take account of when preparing project proposals.
  8. Have an overview of the major tendencies that will shape the future outlook of technology dissemination systems and coalitions
  9. Have a practical understanding of what research and extension could do in the current situation to bridge the gap that separates them.

Contents

6.1.Innovation of the Tanzanian agricultural sector: state of affairs and challenges

6.2. Evolution in the perception of agricultural extension and technology dissemination

6.2.The process of technology dissemination: linear and participatory approaches

6.4. The social organisation of innovation processes: actors and linkages

6.5. Future outlook of technology dissemination systems and coalitions

6.6. Bridging the gap between research and extension in Tanzania

6.1. Innovation of the Tanzanian agricultural sector: state of affairs

and challenges

“Agriculture, the backbone of the economy, continues to be dependent mainly on rainfall and backward technology. Thus agricultural productivity is low and erratic”
“Tanzanians have developed a propensity to prepare and pronounce plans and programmes, and ambitions which are not accompanied by effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. As a result, implementation has been weak. This situation has given rise to the erosion of trust and confidence among the people on their leaders. It is evident that the people are now less enthusiastic about participating in national endeavours. Apathy has set in"
(The Tanzania Development Vision 2025, Planning Commission 1999 : 10-12)

Although off-farm employment is becoming more important, most of the rural households in Tanzania still depend on agricultural production for their survival and income. Also district authorities largely depend on the agricultural sector for revenue collection. Although the conditions for agricultural production are generally quite favorable in Tanzania, average production levels are well below potential production levels. Productivity per land or labour unit has been more or less stagnant during the past decades. Rising prices for imported inputs, as well as unreliable and generally declining prices for agricultural products partially explain this state of affairs. Indeed, the socio-economic and institutional environment for agricultural production is not ‘enabling’ smallholders to perform better. Price incentives are low and hardly justify investments.

However, the vulnerability to international market fluctuations and the less favourable socio-economic context do not entirely explain the persistence of rudimentary production techniques. Many adequate and profitable technologies are available in Tanzania. The implementation of improved practices is far below possible levels of adoption. For instance, we observe that:

  • quality seeds and planting materials are not widely available;
  • soil fertility management practices are hardly applied,
  • levels of mechanization and irrigation are low,
  • potentially profitable post-harvest techniques are not used;
  • etc.

The examination of these and many other indicators suggests that the use of modern agricultural technology is not a common practice (Limbu 1999). Apparently, the agricultural research and development system has not been able to induce a process of change that improves productivity and reduces rural poverty. We still witness the persistence of subsistence agriculture within an ever more dynamic and competitive international environment. This bears the risk that the gap between the performance of Tanzanian agriculture and international averages is getting wider. A more ‘hostile’ environment therefore even asks for more vigorous action to innovate and improve farming practices. The ambition to go beyond subsistence agriculture presents another challenge. Successful penetration of markets, strongly advocated in the Agricultural Sector Development Strategy, requires the continuous improvement of the quality of products.

The large gap between research, extension and farmers probably constitutes the single most important barrier towards agricultural development in Tanzania.

6.1.2.Causes of insufficient technology dissemination

In most regions and districts, different actors have identified the major problems of farmers. The analysis of lists of farmer problems would reveal that for many - if not most - of these problems the potential solutions are already known. However, the agricultural development system (which includes research, extension services, seed and input suppliers, animal health centres and other providers of agricultural services) has not been able to deliver the messages and/or did not succeed to facilitate farmers to implement the proposed technologies.

Imperfections in the technology dissemination system are generally the result of (a combination) the following problems:

  • Information dissemination problem: farmers do not know about the technologies.
  • Training problem: farmers heard about or even saw the innovation but do not know how to implement it.
  • Technology-fit or enabling environment problem: farmers cannot face the financial and/or labour requirements of the proposed options.

If the dissemination of technology does not work, the following causes are generally put forward (Bollinger et al., 1994; Limbu, 1999):

  • Non-functional institutional set-up: formalities and regulations, lack of resources of governmental bodies, failure of research to provide usable results, lack of co-ordination among the organisations and institutions that form the agricultural knowledge and information districts.
  • Shortcomings of the extension service: bureaucratic procedures that lead to delays and inflexibility, hierarchical relations that discourage initiatives, insufficient capacities and motivation of extension staff, lack of backstopping of field staff and insufficient monitoring and evaluation of field level activities.
  • Role perceptions. Extension agents often consider themselves as an outsider and specialist. This is reflected in the language they use and sometimes even a lack of respect for local customs. This leads to a lack of trust and confidence of target populations.

Many government organisations as in Tanzania, base the choice of extension messages either on national government policies or on research findings, which are considered to be important for farmers. This does not necessarily lead to wrong choices, but for technologies to be really relevant to locally felt needs, researchers, extension workers and farmers must effectively communicate to identify the needs and to adapt recommendations to local conditions.

Farmers will always politely listen to listen to a researcher or extension agent. However, they will only be more than superficially interested if they are convinced that the information provided will help them to realise their goals. If not, farmers are free not to give any follow-up to his instruction or advice (and many farmers make use of the freedom). This results in what has been called the 'ineffective implementation syndrome' (cf. quote at the beginning of this chapter).

This situation has recently been recognized in national policy frameworks. Efforts are now made to bring research, training andextension closer together and to improve the institutional set-up. At District level, Agricultural Development Plans (DADP's), will elaborated for the first time in 2003. These plans may become an important entry point for more widespread dissemination of technologies. At the level of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security a Client service charter was adopted in November 2002. Another encouraging development is that during the past two decades, communities have been increasingly encouraged to participate in planning, implementing and evaluating development activities. Government and non-governmental institutions increasingly recognize the need to move away from top-down approaches towards more participatory technology dissemination approaches. The main thrust of this change is the recognition that rural people themselves are owners and shapers of their economic and social well-being.

6.2.Evolution in the perception of agricultural extension and technology dissemination

Around 1900, certain Universities in the North approached farmers and presented them new technologies. The term 'extension' is derived from this practice (Farrington 1994). Extension can be defined as reaching out to target groups. Dissemination, which is often used to describe the same kind of activities, can be defined as the spreading of information. The objectives of extension and dissemination were generally to reveal new insights to farmers, to solve practical implementation problems, to provide adult training and to make means of production available.

Over the years, the modalities of conducting agricultural extension and dissemination have changed. Progressively, new approaches and orientations were adopted. In practice, national agricultural extension systems vary from one country to another. Differences are observed in the following areas:

  • Level of intervention: individual counselling, social groups and community level. It is clear that the choice of the level of intervention not only has financial consequences, but also affects to what extent different target groups can be reached.
  • Methodological approaches: commodity approach, technical change approach, training and visit system, participatory extension approaches, empowerment approaches.
  • Orientation: on technical practices or people-centred
  • Toolboxes: variety and types of tools used.

The gradual evolution of national agricultural extension services notwithstanding, the terms 'extension' and 'dissemination' are now often criticized for the linear, unidirectional flow of information between research services and farmers that it implies. There are, critics argue, multiple sources of new technologies. In addition to public sector services, we have private commercial sector, non-profit and voluntary organisations and the farmers' own innovations. Information comes from different sources and information flows are multi-directional: farmers communicate among themselves, extension services meet and farmers give feedback to research and extension.

In order to better capture the complexity of information flows and the pluralism of actors, many authors now use another vocabulary. Observers of agricultural innovation processes now often prefer to use other terms:

  • Participatory technology development and dissemination (PTDD). This term clearly addresses the involvement of farmers.
  • Scaling up (ILEIA 2001). This term clearly indicates that the source of innovation comes from 'below' and not from 'above'.
  • Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems (AKIS)and networking for innovation (Engel & Salomon 1997). This perspective is sensitive to the complementary roles and collaboration between different agricultural service providers.
  • Uptake pathways and entry points (Rees et al 2000). This terminology raises awareness about the multiplicity of actors that can be involved in technology dissemination.

Paragraph 6.3. will elaborate further on different approaches towards the process of technology transfer. In paragraph 6.4, we will have a close look at actors and linkages, e.g. the social organisation of the innovation process.

6.3.The process of technology dissemination:

linear and participatory approaches

6.3.1Conventional Transfer of Technology Strategy (ToT)

In Tanzania and most developing countries this conventional Transfer of Technology (ToT) model has been common practice for developing and disseminating innovations. The model is based on the assumption that technologies developed by scientists and transferred to farmers will trigger agricultural development (Figure 6.1). The model assumes that farmers' problems identified by scientists can be solved by research organisations and their modern scientific approaches. In this model, the role of agricultural research institutes and its researchers is to generate knowledge and technologies. After receiving knowledge or information from formal training or research institutes, the role of extension services is to handle the subsequent dissemination of technologies and to provide a link between researchers, policy makers and farmers.

Extension operated on the assumption that farmers are passive, illiterate (and therefore ignorant) and unable to innovate or to integrate new cropping and livestock practices into their agricultural production systems. Until recently most public sector extension agents actually just told farmers what they should do. Farmers are regarded as a constraint to agricultural development rather than potential initiators of solutions. In this conventional extension approach researchers focus on technology development, extension agents transmit the messages and farmers passively receive them.

Figure 6.1.Conventional Transfer of Technology strategy

'Us and them'

This linear top-down model creates a rigid hierarchy that discourages interaction and feedback of information. 'We' determine priorities, generate technologies and these are transferred to 'them'. Farmers' participation is limited to passive or - at best - functional participation. The model therefore does not really provide an opportunity for researchers, extension staff and farmers to work together. Researchers focus on developing "blanket recommendations” and extension staff are transfer agents who teach and demonstrate new technologies to innovative farmers. In the context of ToT, extension messages tend to be prescriptive and uniform. They do not pay attention to particular environments, conditions, opportunities and local knowledge. The model assumes that once innovators adopt new technologies other farmers will learn from them and progressively adopt as well. The training and attitudes of extension agents conventionally leads them to expect unquestioning and universal acceptance of the technologies they promote.

Training and Visit approach

The most well known example of the linearly modelled ToT strategy is the Training and Visit approach (T&V). This approach had its origins in Israel in the 1950's, was subsequently tried in a World Bank Project in Turkey and then introduced in South Asian rice-growing areas in the late 1970's and is used in many countries, including Tanzania. Its main objective is to increase agricultural productivity by providing information at regular intervals. Researchers train extension workers in specific training sessions (e.g. quarterly training sessions in Tanzania). They then visit contact farmers or contact groups. This approach is mainly used in government extension systems. Even though criticism of the T&V system has been extensive, it has to be admitted that most public extension systems have been subject to 'downsizing' operations and were stripped of some of the additional functions they formerly had, such as input supply. What remained was the provision of basic information transfer, advisory and training functions (Christoplos et al., 2001).

Generally, observers agree that although ToT and T&V can potentially cover large geographical areas, these approaches:

  • insufficiently adapt the general recommendations to farm and farmer conditions, leading to low adoption levels or poor performance of technologies;
  • give too little interest in local knowledge and practices, cultural values and power relations.

6.3.2Participatory Extension Approaches (Farmer first)

The basic view underlying this linear model, whereby a technology is generated by research, transferred by extension and utilised by farmers in a simple sequential manner, is now seriously questioned. As we have seen in module 5, many innovations either originate from farmers or are modified by farmers to adapt them better to their situation (participatory technology development). In addition, it is recognized that farmers can play an important role in technology dissemination (participatory technology dissemination.

Since the 1970's, efforts have been made to improve the impact of agricultural research and extension. Among others, this resulted in farming system, participation in development and gender and development approaches. These efforts were fuelled by a growing awareness that the socio-economic and agro-ecological conditions of resource-poor farmers are complex, diverse and risk-prone (Farrington, 1998). These efforts focused mostly on increasing the involvement of farmers in technology development and transfer (see Table 6.1).

Table 6.1 Evolution of participatory extension approaches

Period / Reason given for non-adoption / Solution / Role of extension / Role of research
1950/60 / Ignorance / Extension / Teach farmers / Develop technology
1970/80 / Farm-level constraints / Remove constraints / Supply inputs. Get more information from farmers. / Understand farming systems
1990-95 / Technology does not fit / Participatory technology development / Facilitate farmer participation and identify solutions together / Understand rural livelihoods
1995- / Technology does not fit and farmers do not have access to goods and services. / Networking among organisations and empowerment of farmers / Public-private partnerships.
Farmer organisation and empowerment / Understand rural livelihoods, policy context and communication networks

During the 1980s, development practitioners increasingly perceived farmers as partners in research and extension and as key players in technology development and transfer. An enormous variety of participatory methodologies, generally put in the PRA framework, were developed and thousands of professionals started to apply them. From 1985 onwards, growing numbers of professionals have made personal changes and accepted risks by adopting the more flexible and open-ended approach. It was then clearly realised that farmers have the capacity to collaborate as partners in the development of technologies (participatory technology development). It was also realised that farmers also have the capacity to diffuse new technologies among themselves (farmer-to-farmer approaches). These insights culminated in what is now known as the Farmer First approach (FF; Chambers 1989) or Participatory Extension Approach (PEA; Hagmann et al. 1998).