1 - 4 of 4
Number of results to display per page
Search Results
2. Farmer participatory research: Why extension workers should understand and facilitate farmers’ role transitions
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Hauser, Michael (author), Lindtner, Mara (author), Prehsler, Sarah (author), Probst, Lorenz (author), and University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2016-07-30
- Published:
- Austria: Science Direct
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 109 Document Number: D10962
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- 47(2016) : 52-61
- Notes:
- 9 pages, via online journal, Farmers who engage in farmer participatory research (FPR) change their established social roles in households and communities. As such, comprehension of farmers’ role transitions is important to understand the extrinsic and intrinsic factors impeding or supporting the uptake and use of FPR by farmers. The existing FPR literature, however, does not address such role transitions. In this study, we analyzed farmers’ experiences with FPR and underlying role transitions in a commercial organic agriculture project in western Uganda. We drew on quantitative and qualitative data from interviews, group discussions, and observations involving farmers and extension workers. Our results suggest extrinsic and intrinsic factors affect farmers’ self-conception, influencing their willingness to participate in FPR. The level of alignment between the self-conception and the anticipated role determines farmers’ decision regarding participation in FPR and affects their response pattern. Farmers’ response pattern and individual set of inhibitors and facilitators lead to the experience of role insufficiency or role mastery, which is crucial for farmers’ continuation or termination of on-farm experiments. Understanding and facilitating role transitions is, therefore, essential for sustaining on-farm experiments, which complements current technical FPR training.
3. How to be a good rural extensionist. Reflections and contributions of Argentine practitioners
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Landini, Fernando (author) and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnicas (National Council of Scientific and Technological Research), Argentina University of La Cuenca del Plata, Argentina University of Moron, Argentina
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2015-04-15
- Published:
- Argentina: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D10882
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- 43 : 193-202
- Notes:
- 9 pages, online journal article, Quality rural extension is of utmost importance for generating food security and sustainable rural development. In this paper, Argentine rural extensionists' point of view on how to be a good practitioner is described, as well as compared to good practices proposed by scholars and international development organizations. Forty rural extensionists from the Northeastern Argentine provinces were interviewed (29men, 11 women). Interviews were recorded and transcribed, texts were categorized and contents analyzed. Scholars and extensionists, despite agreeing to most of the same principles, frame their recommendations for good extension practices in different ways. The former's recommendations tend to be supported by multiple case studies and focused on best practices on the level of extension projects or policies, while the latter's tend to draw upon their own experience and develop proposals more concerned with interpersonal interactions and with overcoming practical problems in real (and not ideal)settings. Best extension practices depend on environmental, institutional, political and cultural contexts, this implying there is no best extension practice in general. Training extensionists in interpersonal skills and in social sciences is key for reaching good extension results. Horizontal communication between farmers and extensionists, negotiation over best technologies, and helping farmers reflect on their production practices are extension strategies with great potential.
4. Model farmers, extension networks and the politics of agricultural knowledge transfer
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Taylor, Marcus (author) and Bhasme, Suhas (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018-11
- Published:
- International: Science Direct
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 151 Document Number: D10128
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- 64 : 1-10
- Notes:
- 10 pages, via online journal, Model farmers are a common feature of many developing world agricultural extension networks within which they demonstrate new cultivation techniques and technologies to local communities. The diverse political-economic and socio-cultural roles that such farmers assume, however, are rarely afforded critical scrutiny. To do so, we emphasise the ways in which model farmers facilitate not only the production and transfer of knowledge but also of materials and legitimacy. These transfers occur both horizontally to community members and vertically through linkages with extension agents, research institutions and private sector interests. We establish how these transfers have important impacts upon both efficiency and equity. To illustrate, we use examples of model farmers drawn from research on hybrid rice dissemination in Mandya district, Karnataka. Despite having the same official functions within the extension network, the model farmers we surveyed assumed strongly different roles with notable implications for the effectiveness of knowledge transfer alongside equity considerations.