Dph sheet on Farmer Field School and Knowledge

 

Title

Farmer Field School

 

Subtitle

Knowledge Exchange

Keywords: Farmer Field School, pests, friendly pests, AME, RDT, FAO, traditional knowledge
Author: Shruti Kulkarni
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Centre for Education and Documentation, Bangalore
No 7, 8^th Main, 3^rd Phase, Domlur, 2^nd Stage, Bangalore- 560 071

Tel: 91-80-25353397, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , www.doccentre.net

 

Date of creation: March 2009

Farmer's Day Out

 

A group of farmers in the village of Akutotapallli in the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh have looked forward to this day. They were eagerly awaiting for the field school programme to begin. As the members got together at around 9 AM in the morning, it was beginning to get hot already.

 

Abdul Kareem, Head of Sustainable Agriculture at the Accion Fraterna's Ecology Centre in Anantapur briefly discussed with the farmers, the purpose of the activity and its importance. The activity in question is the Farmers' Field School (FFS).

 

The Farmer Field School is a form of adult education, which evolved from the concept that farmers learn optimally from field observation and experimentation. It was developed to help farmers tailor their Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices to diverse and dynamic ecological conditions.

In regular sessions from planting till harvest, groups of neighboring farmers observe and discuss dynamics of the crop’s ecosystem. Simple experimentation helps farmers further improve their understanding of functional relationships (e.g. pests-natural enemy population dynamics and crop damage-yield relationships).

Taken from FAO Corporate Document Repository-' IPM Farmer Field Schools' http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/ad487e/ad487e02.htm

FFS is basically a virtual school in-situ where the farmers are given hands-on training on various productivity enhancement technologies with primary focus on learning by doing. The FFS includes on-farm trials and demonstration, training and exposure of farmers, field day, etc. The objective here is to expose farmers on various agriculture technologies, test and validate them under their own management conditions so as to improve adoption of technologies by the farmers.

Taken from Action from Social Advancement

http://www.asaindia.org/

The FFS at Akutotapalli began with the group clapping three times, saying- (in Telugu) Raitu (Farmer), Polam (Field), Badi (School). The group of about 35 people was divided into 5 sub-groups. Each group set out to collect damage causing pests, friendly pests, sample crops with pest diseases in the groundnut field. Besides other physiological aspects such as soil moisture, plant population, plant height, average number of leaves etc. were also recorded. The groups came back with samples of several pests and predators, which were identified and discussed.

 

One of the moderators explained, “These are Jassids (pacha doma). It eats the juice in a leaf and makes the leaf like white plastic paper by eating the green substance from the leaf. For this pest, we spray neem oil.”

 

“See, this is wasp (kandireega). Its nose is long & it has stiff wings. So, if Helicoverpa (pacha purugu) or Spodoptera (ladde purugu) come, this insect kills them by piercing its nose through their body and sucking the fluids. See, in this picture, how it is sucking and eating.”

 

All these proceedings were diligently recorded.

 

Thus began the FFS

The first ever IPM Farmer Field School started in 1989 in Central Java in Indonesia to reduce farmer reliance on pesticides in rice. It started in 1980s when paddy was affected by the brown plant hopper pest. The Farmer Field School was introduced by FAO ( Food and Agriculture Organisation ) in an attempt to find solution. IPM FFS soon caught up and FFS were carried out in a few other Asian countries and was no longer limited to rice.

 

Dr. R. Dwarkinath, a renowned extension expert and Chairman of the Bangalore based NGO, AME ( Agriculture Man and Ecology) foundation, “In Indonesia, it was brought in as IPM method. Integrated Plant Production Pest Control Method and when it came over to India, in 2004-05, when Dr. Gustafor was the representative. He suggested that we visit one African country-Kenya and see how they have tried to adopt the FFS, away from plant production to other activities and we came back and tried it on dry farming. Today we are doing an excellent job on dry farming.”

 

What does a farmer actually learn from such a field school? Any given crop grows not in isolation but in the presence of biological factors such as pests, predators, and non-biological, physical, chemical factors such as moisture content, rainfall, nitrogen content etc. For instance if a farmer's field is infested with a particular pest, it may be useful to closely observe the pest- when does it multiply, what does it feed on (stem, leaves, flower nectar), its life-cycle, predator if there is any. This hands-on knowledge will make the farmers better equipped to manage the pest and control the damage caused by it.

 

Farmers field schools in these case serve as laboratories where farmers can carry out certain experiments based on their observations. For example, if a crop is affected by a defoliator-pest that feeds on its leaves, just by plucking a few leaves can he control the damage?

 

Shiv Shankar of Accion Fraterna Ecology Centre is a farmer and has been trained to carry out farmer field schools.

“This is called 'long term process'. The main point here is if the pests come and eat the leaves of the plant, farmer gets worried of loss and sprays pesticides immediately. But, if a plant has 100 leaves, even if 20% leaves are damaged, it doesn’t affect the yield. This long term process is to prove that point. That’s why in a square meter of land, we have cut half the number of leaves from every plant to demonstrate to the farmers the difference between the yield drawn from these plants and the plants grown normally.”

 

Farmers are encouraged to carry out many such similar experiments on their fields. These experiments can either be short-term experiments or long-term experiments.

 

The has carried out several FFS with support from a Bangalore based NGO, AME (Agriculture, Man, Ecology). Through FFS several farmers in the field have gone back to traditional farming practices.

 

Abdul Kareem, Head of Sustainable Agriculture Department, RDT Ecology Centre, “We approached AME (Agriculture Man Ecology). Those people have been trained by FAO for 15 months. So we thought they are the perfect people to impart training. Till now four trainings have been given by AME. Previously people were not aware whether the insect is a predator, or a damage-causing insect? Now, they are able to understand which one is a beneficial insect, which one is damage-causing insect.”

 

In an interview with Centre for Education and Documentation Dr R Dwarakinath, chairman of the AME foundation said, “ The wonderful thing is illiterate women draw the picture of the damaging pest and predator that affects their crop. That is the amount of interest that is generated in the crop period. They become the best folks for the village community in these terms. This is the farmers field school-very very, effective. We have not seen any other method of empowering farmers. Even illiterates become very knowledgeable about these things. This is the farming. That is what system we are adopting here.”

 

He further adds, “In Ananthapur, we are trying to do both plant production and crop production through FFS, on groundnut. This is what we are adapting the system, learning process. The group of farmers becomes best-informed people about 10 years later, the pest pattern may change and ecology may change. Today in the existing conditions they are the best-informed people.”

 

Abdul Kareem further adds that FFS is a place to learn new things, which wouldn't be otherwise told to the farmers by the scientific community.

“ Actually no scientist will advocate that whenever there is a Bud necrosis in the field, farmer should not take up spraying at all. Because, if he takes to spraying the small insect carrier called Thrips will be spreading to all other plants and the disease will spread. But people here take indigenously available plant leaves, and boiled them for half an hour. They then extract the liquid and spray it on the crop. This has completely killed this sucking insect called Thrips. So, the plants which were affected by Bud necrosis start sprouting and developing its vegetative parts. That’s such a wonderful thing.”

 

Almost a months back a FFS training was carried out (for facilitators) by AME for the Ecology Centre staff. In the three day training programme, aspects like soil system, soil conservation, soil fertility improvement practices, soil erosion study, understanding insects & insect zoo, water holding capacity, crop diseases and nutrient uptake study were covered extensively.

Shiv Shankar conducts FFSs in 5 villages. He exaplains, " We take 20 to 25 farmers, and arrange, them in sasya mitra sanghas, one women convener and male convener will be present . They will conduct classes on a specific crop ex : ground nut . IN each village once a week we conduct classes . In each village, male and female farmers participate . 10 females and 15 males attend these sessions. First we observe the fields, and try to recognize the insects and diseases that are affecting the crops. They learn about the insects and the methods used to destroy them. Later we also discuss about the previous weeks field tours, and the decisions which have been taken, whether these have been put into practice, did they obtain good results or not. If not what are the reasons behind it all these aspects are discussed. .Not only these, at present, what are the problems they are facing and how to solve them is also taken care of. There are certain methods; we show them the methods by using charts. We prepare charts, and explain to them what the present condition of the weather is, taking weather into consideration, what is to be done. In the next polam badi meeting we discuss and take decisions. We try to investigate whether the crop is affected by insects or diseases, or is it because of lack of fertility in the soil. Taken all these aspects into the records, we finally discuss the pesticides that should be used, if we should use the pesticides or not. If so, which pesticides are more effective? What are the pesticides that can be used and what harmful side effects they will have on the crops. we discuss this with the farmers and give them solutions This system starts right from the day the seeds are sown to the day they harvested; all these aspects are explained to the farmer. Like what are used and what are the results observed. All these aspects are discussed, in grama sabha sessions, We also have documentations, like what the farmer is doing, how much he has spent, what are his expenses, How much is his profit or loss. all these are documented Referring to these documents we will provide the required information to the farmers.

 

 

 

Objectives of an FFS

 

In an FFS, the emphasis is on holistic crop management wherein pest management is considered as a part of the overall crop management. FFS has 4 basic objectives:

1. Grow a healthy crop

2. Conserve natural enemies of crop pests

3. Conduct regular field observations

4. Make farmers competent in their own field

5. Reduce production costs

Outstanding farmers from these FFS could be selected and re-trained to act as Farmer Trainers to further take the newly acquired knowledge and skills to other in their community.

 

Taken from the paper Fundamentals of Farmer Feild Schools

by Prabhat Kumar, LEISA, March 2003

 

 

What could ail FFS?

 

A survey carried out under the FAO-IPM FFS Project in Peru, showed the following limitations that could affect an FFS programme. The limitations could restrict FFS activities in other countries as well.

1. Lack of time and resources of FFS facilitators

2. Lack of ownership giving facilitators limited possibility to control and influence the process

3. Little experience and capacity for monitoring and evaluation, and this experience is limited to the use of quantitative indicators.

4. Little diffusion or use of what is found- evaluation reports are generally neither published nor distributed

5. Negative perception of evaluations- by field workers who often see them as 'control-tools' applied by those in charge.

 

Taken from the paper Evaluation in FFS: a burden or a blessing?

By Kim Groenweg and Jorge Chavez Tafur, LEISA, March 2003

 

 

To begin with FFS is generally carried out on trial plots, that become laboratory for various experiments and observations. Based on the experiments here similar activities are taken to the individual farms which could be much bigger in size.

 

FFS should have trial plots ranging from 2 to 4 hectares, where they can practice various systems like rain harvest, soil and water conservation, tree cropping at the edges, agro-forestry, animal husbandry, bee keeping, sericulture, food processing and marketing etc.

Taken from The Narayan Reddy Column, LEISA, March 2003

 

A few gender sensitive groups of FFS have also emerged, where women play a crucial role in carrying out the experiments. FFS is being slowly taken up in many villages in Andhra Pradesh and also in some other parts of the country. However for any FFS to sustain in the long term, institutional support is required. The NGO sector can play an important role in providing technical inputs and organising farmer groups and conducting regular training programmes. Financial support from the government both for sustaining these activities and also for extending it to other villages and other parts of the country is also essential. In the absence of these, FFS can fizzle out.

 

Dr G V Ramanjaneyulu, Director, Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Hyderabad reiterates why the Indonesian FFS plunged in the absence of adequate institutional support and follow up.

“Ten years back when Indonesia was faced with an acute problem with pesticides and also rice production then overnight the King banned all the chemical pesticides used in rice by an ordinance. 65 chemical pesticide were banned in Indonesia and all government departments were asked to promote IPM. There actually the farmer field school approach has involved and it was great success. 1 million acres in a span of 6-7 years. But what happened later. King changed, FFS disappeared, farmers went back to pesticides. But it was a very good case to show having an institution at the village level helps to sustain it. Today we already crossed 1 million mark and it is going on in a very rapid pace.”

 

An effort like FFS mainly draws from what's there in the field, unlike the conventional approach where experiments are carried out by scientists and the resulting formula is imposed on the farmers, who may not even understand the alien technology and its origin and implications. But through FFS, through actual field based, experiment based learning, these farmers could develop confidence and faith in what they do.

 

At farmer field schools, farmers and facilitators spend one morning a week during the cropping season in a typical cotton field, observing insect behaviour and plant growth rates. They learn that beneficial insects often devour pests, and when this happens, pesticides are not required. Farmers, even illiterate ones, gain confidence and begin relying on their own judgment, even in the face of intense pressure from government agents and pesticide sellers to spray frequently and without reference to field ecology.

Taken from Farmer Field Schools rid Pakistan's cotton fields of pesticides

by Lisa Batiwalla

Info Change

News and Features, April 2007

http://infochangeindia.org/200703285344/Agriculture/Stories-of-change/Farmer-field-schools-rid-Pakistan-s-cotton-fields-of-pesticides.html

 

Farmers vs the Scientists

 

When asked to comment on scientific developments in agriculture without farmers participation at any level, Dr S Nigam of ICRISAT responded,

“Farmers’ participation is very important. Now one has to decide at what level and at what point the participation can occur. There are various models. Personally I feel farmers should be involved at critical stages like in identification of problems, prioritization of problems with a particular crop...there should be 100% participation of the farmers. The decision of the farmers should guide the scientists, in setting up the research agenda. Once you have done that, you develop technology, solution to the problems at the research stations, and in controlled conditions, some times in laboratories, glasshouses. After that you need to have a field evaluation at the research station. Farmers’ involvement is very important at the evaluation stage because ultimately evaluation happens in farmers’ field, and they decide what they want to keep what they don’t want to keep, or they send you back that you need to modify this one little bit to suit my requirement.”

While there are good chances that FFS will work and will be hugely successful if implemented with discipline, there are other factors that may curtail it's growth and extension. Ideologies of the modern scientific community will find a way and percolate down to the fields.

 

Dr G V Ramanjaneyulu, “In Andhra Pradesh there was a study done by an anthropologist and it was also published. It was called “De-skilling of farmers”. How modern science has deskilled the farmers. So in all these studies I feel the researcher’s perceptions are influencing the outcome more than what the farmer feels.”

 

What happened during the Green Revolution is not very different. The Green Revolution in the 1960s, started with big promises to the farmers, most of which were fulfilled. In due to course of time, the farmers were bombarded with high yielding varieties of seeds. The trend of exclusion may have begun at that point in time and its roots have grown deeper and stronger. In the olden days when the intrusion of modern science was negligent, farmers knew their seeds, their crop and soil like the back of their hand. Based on this existing knowledge which has been passed onto them by the previous generations, they experimented. Their fields became a sort of live laboratory.

 

Even now their fields are laboratories but they have very limited control over it and the joystick is in the hands of certain scientists who may not even be familiar with its physiological conditions. Dumping strange, unfamiliar varieties of genetically modified seeds have excluded the farmers from their holistic approach to farming.

 

An FAO report claims that farmers are regular presenters at national agricultural research and university forums in some countries, in India it may take a little while. But efforts are underway in some places where scientists and farmers are equally appreciative of the others' knowledge.

 

Shunning modern technology and adopting traditional practices is not easy and is not practical since many factors like market, demand, pests and crop diseases have evolved and no existing system, in isolation can remedy the current situation. And this is where science can play an important role says Seshagiri Rao in an interview with Centre for Education and Documentation. Rao is an agricultural scientist and has experimented extensively on his farm at Pavaguda (Karnataka- Andhra Pradesh border).

“You see what is important is to learn & borrow the principles of sophisticated system. See science should be able to borrow the principles of it, understand what is it based on and adapt it to the current thing. There is no escape from today’s globalised connective market economy led agriculture. We may not like it, but we are a part of it. This is really where these knowledge systems have to talk to each other. How will a scientist be able to do this unless he goes to the traditional setup and tries to understand their system. The dialogue between these 2 systems, the partnership between theses 2 systems is vitally important. And science can definitely add new elements to it. The role of science is also that, the science is able to abstract and simulate. Before trying out in a large scale any of this system have to be tried out in a smaller scale.”

 

Comment

Farmers have, over a period of time learnt through experience. Any given crop standing on a particular field is a unique event. Various biological, physiological and environmental factors that contribute to this event are unique and therefore farmer's traditional knowledge is quite powerful in that sense. Science if communicated well and if accepted by the farmers can do wonders. And therefore through FFS this exchange of knowledge is valuable.

 

Dr R Dwarakinath, “In livelihood opportunity a bulk of the knowledge that is used is the traditional knowledge. Even in commercial agriculture, a substantial part of knowledge is traditional knowledge. Ploughing the land, putting the crop into the soil, harvesting, all these are traditional knowledge. What is new is the amount of fertilizers they use, the kind of seed they use, the spacing you provide, the plant protection measure you undertake these are the new methods.”

 

A marriage between traditional knowledge and modern science can only be fruitful if all the components are well balanced. Science is an important basis for the development of our race. But the line between what is ethical and what is unethical are blurring. When asked a question about science and ethics at a public discussion on Knowledge in Civil Society¹, Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer professor of Science and Technology Studies, of the Harvard University responded,

 

“Yes, in most of the settings that we are all aware of, where people are discussing science and society...there has been a rise across the board in attention given to ethics. I think that is just the beginning of a new set of problems because it follows from some of the things we have been saying that it is not that easy to figure out what, the kinds of values that are associated with scientific and technological developments when one says that “technology is running wild” for instance. What does that mean, which values is it pumping up against and whose values anyway.”

Taken from http://kicsforum.net/kics/KD/060-Open-House.html

 

On second thoughts what did farmers do when there were no scientists to give them the magic formula for their crops? They cultivated, experimented in their own harmless way. But science is the biggest thing after mankind. While science is essential, rationale is indispensable. It's hard to tell if over a period of time scientists have unknowingly made the farmers to believe that what they know is not enough, it isn't even correct and only the scientists know the gospel truth. And therefore many of us now unfamiliar with the “alien” seeds, do not know what to do with it and hence look up to science as an elixir to all our problems. And what happens when science fails us, do we hold the God responsible?

 

Notes
Among other NGOs, AME and CSA conduct regular FFS. First the facilitators are trained and these facilitators once fully equipped train the farmers.

 

1. Farmers Field Schools (FFS): A Group Extension Process Based on Adult Non-Formal Education Methods by K. D. Gallagher

http://www.farmerfieldschool.net/document_en/FFS_GUIDe.doc 1999. Revised: 24 December 2003
2. A brief look at the historical context of the FFS

Ten years of IPM field schools http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac834e/ac834e04.htm

 

3. The big picture

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac834e/ac834e0a.htm#TopOfPage

 

Type of sheet
EXPERIENCE and READING

Source of information

Places visited

1. Enabhavi, a village near Hyderabad which claims to be chemical free. FFS is being carried out here with support from Centre for Sustainable Agriculture

2. Akutotapalli, a village near Anantapur, where FFS is being carried out with support from Accion Fraterna- Ecology Centre

3. Visit to Accion Fraterna-Ecology Centre and RDT ( Rural Development Trust ) Anantapur

 

People interviewed

1. Dr G V Ramanjaneyulu, CSA, Hyderabad

2. Dr R Dewarkinath, AME, Bangalore

3. Abdul Kareem, RDT Ecology Centre

4. Seshagiri Rao, Agricultural Scientist, Pavaguda, Karnataka

 

Bibliography

Fundamental elements of a Farmer Field School by Kevin Gallagher, LEISA Magazine, March 2003

Learning with Farmer Field Schools, LEISA Magazine, March 2003

http://kicsforum.net/kics/KD/000-1stpage-knowledge-debates.html

 

 

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