AGFAX: January 2008
Which way now for agricultural research?
Feature
Summary:
Farming is constantly changing. Equipment is being updated; farming methods are being improved to increase productivity. But behind many of these changes are the agricultural researchers. Their responsibility is to discover what farming practises work best in a given situation, and why. What's the best way to boost soil fertility on the farm? Is there a way of developing pest-resistant maize? These are the questions that researchers have asked over the years - and they have found some solutions. But in Which way now for agricultural research? Susanna Thorp asks what needs to happen next to improve agricultural research and development, and how renewed donor funding for agricultural development can be put to greater effect.
Suggested introduction:
No one doubts that Africa needs progress in agricultural development, especially for small scale farmers. So where - or who - can the good ideas and solutions we need for our farming problems come from? Do we need better research in order for development to happen faster?
Answers to these questions were what researchers, farmers and international donor organisations from around the world were looking for when they got together at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), in the UK.
In recent times, more and more researchers have been getting farmers involved -or participating- in the process of identifying problems and testing out new ideas. But in this report, compiled by Susanna Thorp, it seems that if we want more progress - and soon - then farmers and researchers need to be working even closer together.
Tape in:
I would like to see...
Tape out:
...able to achieve this.
Closing Announcement:
Wale Adekunde, ending that report with Susanna Thorp of WRENmedia. He says that more action is needed to improve agricultural research.
Further information:
Farmer First Revisited Conference website: www.future-agricultures.org/fa...
Transcript
Kibue
I would like to see the issue of the research agenda being brought closer home to be practical with us at the very grassroots. I think it has remained at the top.
Narr
Michael Kibue - who works to help pastoralists in Kenya - is not alone in wanting to see agricultural research directed more by those at the grassroots. He also thinks farmers and development workers are just as likely to come up with good ideas - or innovations - as scientists.
Kibue
I would also like to see the issue of innovations. I think there is a wrong feeling that innovations belong to the research sector. Innovations belong the development sector because innovations are supposed to be problem solving and they emerge and they are not just anticipated. Sometimes what works is not what you would plan for but you just get the solution out of experience. It's not something that can be just researched into - it is just something that emerges.
Narr
The meeting at the Institute of Development Studies heard many examples of how hearing the farmer's voice has helped. But there was a strong feeling that agricultural researchers have to do more. This from David Howlett, of the UK government's Department for International Development.
Howlett
The broad message is 'How can researchers be much more effective in working with farmers, national governments, consumers, importantly the role of private sector to develop better technologies and better policies, which is going to allow agriculture to achieve inclusive growth and also important to address issues in terms of climate change?'
Thorp
Now that's a big ask on researchers and I think that researchers are, to a certain extent, feeling quite insecure about all these changes and the demands that are on them. What is required to make them feel that they are still a very valid part of this process and they still have a role?
Howlett
There are lot of other actors in this. The researchers are one part of it, national governments, civil society, donor governments like ourselves, and of course the private sector. So researchers are just one part of that picture and we do not expect researchers to achieve everything on their own - that will not make sense.
Thorp
So building partnerships is key?
Narr
Those good partnerships between researchers and farmers will happen if each has a healthy respect for each other. However Norman Uphoff, from America, who has experience working with farmer groups in Asia, feels that farmer-researcher relationships often get off to a shaky start. They way they see, and treat each other needs to change.
Uphoff
I guess I would like to see us breaking down our mental stereotypes of each other and various groups. The specialisation that farmers do this and researchers do that - we see a blurring of those lines and farmers themselves are making innovation and they are doing extension. We have scientists who are learning from farmers - not a lot yet but more and more. I think that researchers, extensionists, farmers can all become very good friends and I think it's more productive, more likely to be widespread and have wide impact.
Narr
So where will this new respect for each other come from? For Robert Chambers, someone who has been at the forefront of agricultural development for the last two decades, it is most likely to be learned in the classroom, or in the lecture hall.
Chambers
One of the things I would particularly like would be changes in agricultural education. What we have at the moment is a pipeline which goes on churning out people who have got problems with their attitudes, behaviours, mindsets, their disciplinary specialisation. What I would like to see is a much greater recognition of the importance of people reflecting on themselves, being aware of their own mindsets, being aware of what they see, what they don't see, what they tend to privilege, what they tend to push to one side. If that was a quality in the agricultural scientists and extensionists of the future and if it was a quality in the managers and administrators and policymakers who are responsible for agricultural policy then I think we could have a major transformation in the next 20 years.
Narr
Reflecting and exchanging views on how to get the ideas and the solutions we need for our farming problems is all very well. But as Wale Adekunde, of the Forum for Agricultural Research for Africa warns: words are not enough. The time has come for action.
Adekunde
I came with the optimism that people would be able to reflect adequately on what they have been doing and then look at the changes and then try to modify their approaches so that we can multiply our impact. No single person can finish the work in Africa - we have to work together. But if we continue to talk theoretically we may not be able to achieve this. End of track.
