1.1 The challenge: Extension of a sustainable agricultural practice
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"The challenge for us is to learn from farmers, and help guide
the stream of spontaneous farmer experiments by teaching farmers what they do
not know, in a way that is consistent with what they already know."
Jeffery W. Bentley |
In developing countries, it is still a majority of the people
that depends on agriculture, and the rural sector is seen as the engine of
development. Considering the ongoing population growth, agriculture more than
ever faces the challenge of increasing food production without destroying
natural resources (soil, water, air etc.). Intensifying agricultural production
while at the same time improving its sustainability is the first commandment of
our century. During the seventies, the Green Revolution brought considerable
yield increases through the introduction of new high yielding varieties coupled
with the application of irrigation and fertiliser/pesticide packages. In the
meantime the negative ecological implications of the Green Revolution have
become well known: Soil depletion, soil salinity, loss of biodiversity etc.
threaten the very purpose of the Green Revolution. Sustainable agricultural
practices need to complement or even replace the heritage of the Green
Revolution.
There is already an existing basis for this: Depending on
prevailing agro-ecosystems, an array of such practices developed by farmers,
researchers and extensionists is now available for application and further
development. Categorised according to agro-ecological zones (compare
Holt-Gimenez 1996) typical examples of recent relevance are:
· In dry to
semi-humid zones, where the erosion problem is of primary importance, various
soil conservation measures have been examined and analysed (terracing, bunds,
horizontal tilling, minimal tillage, water harvesting techniques etc.) which can
be summarised under the heading "Natural Resources
Management".
· Sustainable
practices in forests and lowlands of more humid areas include rotational
cropping and agro-forestry.
· Under
semi-humid and fertile conditions, pests are a major threat to agricultural
production. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a typical example of a
practice that is in convergence with the principles of sustainable
agriculture.
The feature common to natural resources management,
agro-forestry, and IPM is not only that they represent examples for endeavours
to reach a sustainable agriculture, but also that they all are applied in very
complex agro-ecological situations where any decision to make any major change
deserves a preceding, careful, holistic analysis. The complexity of such
agro-ecological situations is accompanied by an equally high degree of
diversity: The agro-ecological situation, e.g. soil fertility or insect
populations, may easily vary from farm to farm or even from plot to plot. As a
consequence, the role of the farmer and his or her family in deciding to make
any major change needs to be included systematically into the entire process of
searching and applying new solutions. In general, this implies a new and much
more farmer-oriented approach to problem solving and decision-taking procedures.
The above mentioned sustainable agricultural practices are the response to risks
inherent to a higher or lesser degree in any given agro-ecological situation.
Such risks include drought, erosion, pests etc. The implication for the farmer
is that any decision to make a change can be disastrous for the one who takes it
if it was not properly assessed beforehand. Sometimes, change is inevitable, and
making the right choice becomes vital.
IPM fosters species diversity to which ecological sustainability
is directly linked. Therefore, in the context of this study we consider
Integrated Pest Management as
· a key-example for
a sustainable agricultural practice
· which is applied
in complex, diverse and risk prone areas (CDRs) (Chambers 1989).
In complex and diverse situations, traditional ways of extension
hit the limits. Traditional extension approaches which came forth with the Green
Revolution were characterised by
· technologies
developed by researchers on research stations
· top-down transfer
of technology by researchers to extensionists, and from these to the
farmers
· blanket
recommendations for large areas.
The challenge to extension - extension understood in a wide
sense as defined below - is to find approaches that are suited to introduce
sustainable agricultural practices in complex, diverse and risk prone
situations.
IPM being a prime example of complexity and diversity, this
study aims at identifying success factors for extension work on
it.
