10pgs, Conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification (CASI) is gaining prominence as an agricultural pathway to poverty reduction and enhancement of sustainable food systems among government and development actors in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (EGP) of South Asia. Despite substantial investment in research and extension programs and a growing understanding of the agronomic, economic and labor-saving benefits of CASI, uptake remains limited. This study explores farmer experiences and perspectives to establish why farmers choose not to implement CASI systems despite a strong body of recent scientific evidence establishing the benefits of them doing so. Through thematic coding of semi-structured interviews, key constraints are identified, which establishes a narrative that current households' resources are insufficient to enable practice change, alongside limited supporting structures for resource supplementation. Such issues create a dependency on subsidies and outside support, a situation that is likely to impact any farming system change given the low-risk profiles of farmers and their limited resource base. This paper hence sets out broad implications for creating change in smallholder farming systems in order to promote the adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies in resource-poor smallholder contexts, especially with regard to breaking the profound poverty cycles that smallholder farmers find themselves in and which are unlikely to be broken by the current set of technologies promoted to them.
Preconceived notions exist about small-scale farmers in the U.S. Beyond research on new and beginning farmers, few empirical studies have learned directly from small-scale farmers in the U.S. about their perspectives and experiences. By analyzing semi-structured interviews of small-scale farmers in Indiana, this study develops an in-depth understanding of the multi-dimensional motivations and experiences of small-scale farmers and the interconnected, multi-scalar challenges they face. The lack of social infrastructure to support small-scale farmers becomes paramount as they contend with dilemmas of engaging in pluriactivity, securing reliable labor, and navigating relationship building with consumers and peers for both short-term profits and long-term social capital. This study contributes to understanding how small-scale farmers’ motivations, experiences, challenges, and strategies interact to shape their relationship to the land, their farming enterprise, and their perception of and position in the larger agro-ecological-social-economic system, and highlights the need to improve social infrastructure to support small-scale farmers.
15 pages, Information needs, surveys, extension agents, information seeking, small farmers, small farms, development, Pakistan(Southern Asia), This study investigated information behaviour of citrus farmers residing in rural areas of Sargodha, Pakistan. The data were collected from 120 adult male farmers through face to face interviews using preformulated questionnaire and analyzed by applying descriptive statistics. The citrus farmers required information on land preparation, soil fertility management, better citrus varieties, citrus trees protection, harvesting techniques, pest and diseases control, fertilizer applications, plantation techniques, finance, Government policies and programs, better pricing, labor information in the locality, agrochemicals, how to stop fruit drop, weather, irrigation management, pesticides application, health and safety information, buyers, collections and traders, and herbicide. These farmers relied overwhelmingly on their prior experience and interpersonal relationships such as fellow farmers/friends, progressive farmers, for agricultural information. More than two-third of these farmers did not seem to have any contact, either written or oral, with government agricultural officials. The farmers’ farm size, education, and income appeared to predict their information needs and sources. Lack of timely access, inaccessibility, unawareness, bad timing of television programs, poor economic conditions, infrequent visits of extension staff, low level of education and language barriers were the primary obstacles in information acquisition. The results will be helpful for extension agents and librarians of the public libraries in the area while making adjustments for efficient and effective information delivery. This study would make a contribution in the existing research on farmers’ crop-specific information behaviour.
14 pages, This study examines how smallholder coffee farmers’ perceptions may influence their engagement in peer mobilization and collective action. Forty smallholder coffee farmers were interviewed in the Central Highlands region of Peru using a closed-ended instrument. The sample of smallholder farmers was achieved using purposive and snowball sampling methods. Quantitative data on farmers’ attitudes and aspirations regarding working with peers, autonomy, and external support as well as knowledge, skills, and behaviors pertinent to collective actions were collected and analyzed using descriptive and correlational procedures. Key findings indicate farmers perceive a need for external support, feel there are benefits of collective actions, and aspire to work with their peers. Based on the findings, it is recommended that practitioners and farmer group leaders focus training efforts on building smallholders’ knowledge and skills in mobilization, encourage peer association/collective action as a source of external support, and target knowledgeable, skilled and confident farmers to lead collective actions. This study has implications to bolster support for farmer-to-farmer extension and technical assistance systems and inform the identification of leader farmers.
18 pages, Soil and land degradation is a common issue in Sub-Saharan Africa leading to poor yield and threatening food security, yet soil conservation technologies remain underutilized. To build on prior work that primarily emphasizes demographic differences in adoption, this study contributes by identifying underlying social and cultural factors that influence farmers' perceptions about and willingness to adopt soil conservation management practices in a rural region of Malawi. Key informant interviews were first conducted to identify constraints slowing composting adoption, which were then used to structure the creation of participatory videos—videos created with the active participation of local farmers that demonstrated compost manure practices and benefits. Farmers from the same communities subsequently participated in focus group discussions before and after the moderated screening and discussion of these videos in order to obtain a more in-depth understanding of the constraints and possible ways to overcome them. Among the identified constraints to the use of composting were inefficient government programs such as the Farm Input Subsidy Program that contributed to a belief that only subsidized chemical fertilizers provided positive returns on investment, a lack of support from extension services that diminished compost use, social norms around gender that hindered women farmers from attempting to use composting, and livelihood strategy changes that led to labour shortages. Findings from the focus groups showed that the participatory video method encouraged adoption by helping farmers, and especially women, to reconsider composting, test it, and reflect upon social and cultural constraints impeding adoption. Over half of the farmers in the study tested composting for the first time after discussing the videos and changed their perception of both the value of composting and their own ability to use these types of soil conservation practices.
