|
|
STRENGTHENING RESEARCH AND EXTENSION FOR RAINFED FARMING : ROLE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
|
Introduction
The
contribution and impact of Research and Extension in generation and transfer of
appropriate technologies for rainfed farming need to
be constantly improved because it is from these areas that further increases in
production have to come to meet the growing demands of the population.
Rainfed areas account for 68% of
·
agro-ecological conditions are widely diverse, even within small
areas; irregular rainfall makes conditions risk-prone in many areas;
nutrient-poor soils provide a weak basis for conventional agricultural
intensification.
·
farming populations have long been outside the political and
economic mainstream. Levels of self-confidence and formal education are low,
making it difficult for farmers to articulate their developmental and
technology needs.
·
the diversity of varieties, cropping patterns and farming
practices in use means that markets for any individual input are small and
fragmented. This, together with poor transport and communications
infrastructure act as a powerful disincentive for the private commercial sector
to become involved in input supply.
·
public sector staff regard the more remote rainfed
areas as difficult postings, so that the turnround of
staff is very rapid and the proportion of vacant posts high.
Farmers'
responses to these conditions include a number of risk-avoiding practices:
avoidance of high use-levels of purchased inputs in case of crop failure
(through, for example, drought); reliance on well-tried early maturing
varieties that meet both grain and fodder requirements; cropping in mixtures or
relays; heavy reliance on the biomass from off-farm sources (such as grazing
and forest areas); and close integration between crop and livestock production.
Technology generation and diffusion process for rainfed
areas thus needs to be different from that of the irrigated areas.
How adequately have research and
extension hitherto responded to these characteristics?
There is no
comprehensive review detailing the proportion of technologies generated by rainfed farming research that have been taken up, compared
with, for instance, irrigated areas. However, the informal evidence of low
uptake of technologies is substantial.. Hard data are available in one specific
area, viz the age of cultivars of the main crops
grown by farmers (Table 1) ( Witcombe, J.R., Virk, D.S and Farrington J, (eds)
New Seeds for Indian Farmers: Challenges and Opportunities for Change in the
Regulatory Framework.
Periodic
syntheses, suggest that the reasons for weaker performance of research in the rainfed areas include the following:
·
inadequate client orientation, specifically insufficient study of
farming conditions, and inadequate perception of farmers' circumstances and
their needs by scientists;
·
conditions on research stations which differ widely from those on
farmers' fields, and yet the continued implementation of practically all
research on-station;
·
excessive discipline-orientation among scientists; limited
problem-focus or systems orientation;
·
inadequate farmers' participation in the formulation of research
and extension agenda, and in the assessment of research results and provision
of feedback.
Figure 1: Research and
Education expenditure as % of Agriculture Gross Domestic Product (1992-94
average)
Source: Pal
et al (forthcoming)
Similarly in
the case of extension, multiplicity of organisations
who operate without co-ordination, concentration on dissemination of
broad-based extension messages, with little attention to solving farmers'
problems and severe lack of operational funds to effectively utilise the existing manpower, have greatly eroded its
credibility.
In many ways,
these are the symptoms of deeper malaise. For instance, farmers who have long been
at the margins of social, political and economic change will have difficulty in
articulating their requirements or working alongside researchers, without
substantial external support. Furthermore, performance criteria for research
staff provide little incentive to take on work unlikely to yield publishable
material (eg: participatory fieldwork). The absence
of any rigorous type of performance evaluation in the public extension system,
higher spending of the research and extension budgets on fixed costs (especially
salaries) leaving little for operational costs, issues of status and culture
that makes it difficult for many researchers to engage in depth with farmers
and primary concern of the public sector extension on information delivery on
crop production activities with no specific programmes
for group based resource management activities (such as management of common
pool resources and development of microwatersheds
[Box 1] or entrepreneurship development, all have resulted in underutilisation of the existing R&E system. Solutions
to some of these underlying difficulties can only be found over the long term,
but changes in the institutional arrangements for research, and in the
skill-mix, offers prospects for early progress in other areas. These are discussed
below:
Table 1: Average age of
cultivars of important crops (years)
|
Crops |
Region/States |
|||
|
All |
|
M.P |
Rajasthan |
|
|
Rice |
11.5 |
17.1 |
13.3 |
12..5 |
|
Wheat |
9.3 |
12.3 |
11.4 |
10.7 |
|
Pearl Millet |
5.8 |
5.8 |
- |
8.4 |
|
Maize |
16.6 |
19.8 |
26.7 |
11.4 |
|
Sorghum |
15.9 |
7.8 |
17.3 |
- |
|
Groundnut |
15.3 |
9.1 |
- |
12.9 |
|
Chickpea |
12.9 |
19.7 |
26.3 |
11.8 |
Source : Witcombe et al (forthcoming)
What changes are necessary?
A. Institutional
Factors
Inputs from a wider stakeholder
constituency in research.
In most cases,
the research priorities are identified at the headquarters level as thrust
areas. Based on these, projects are prepared by scientists belonging to the specialised disciplinary departments. The standard
procedure is to evaluate these projects by a body comprising scientists from
within. This has three adverse consequences: first, it is difficult to reject
proposals in this forum, since to do so would cause the scientists to lose face
in the presence of their peers; second, certain disciplines are likely to be
under-represented within the institution: for most institutions employ only
few, often junior, social scientists; third, clients are poorly represented.
Mechanism to
obtain inputs from clients or outside experts rarely exist at present. It would
be desirable to get critical, written evaluation of the projects from outside
experts and also from clients, whether it is industry, NGOs or farmers organisations. One way of getting the views of clients is
to ensure their participation in such review meetings But that alone is not
enough. Many of the NGOs are now playing an increasing role in articulating the
needs of small, marginal and illiterate farmers. Opportunities to bring their
input in selection of problems have to be provided. The private commercial
sector is also emerging as one stronger client of agricultural research, ready
to support research initiatives in line with their interest. However, viable
and articulate farmers organisations exist only in
very few crops. Extension agencies, with or without NGO support, have to take
the lead in creating viable farmers organisations.
|
Box 1 .Microwatershed
rehabilitation-the first step towards technological change Microwatershed
rehabilitation (MWR) is a rational strategy for making improvements in rainfed
farming as it reduces soil and water run off, improves water percolation,
increase availability of fodder and water for irrigation, resulting in
introduction .of new crops and varieties. The resultant implications for the organisation and focus of research and extension are,
first, technologies hitherto unfamiliar to farmers need to be introduced to
take full advantage of MWR, second , watersheds represent natural resource
systems and thus approaches should ideally be system-based, and third, social
science skills must be brought to bear for proper understanding of technical
change. These include, analysis of farmers treatment of risk, dynamics of
joint action and equity and distributional issues. |
Ensuring farmer participation in several stages of the research
cycle is found to be the best way of developing relevant technologies.
Experiences from farmer participatory research are given in Box 2.
Shift in balance between core and
contract funding
The purpose
could be facilitated by encouraging scientists to go for competitive grants (eg. AP Cess Fund, NATP) and
reduce core funding. Preliminary evidence from the implementation of Johl Committee recommendations on consultancy, contract
research and contract services by the I CAR has been encouraging. The decision
to implement self-earning requirements on ICAR institutes has also brought good
results. State Agricultural Universities are also expected to follow similar recommendations
shortly. All these would help to make the system client oriented. State line
departments should be provided with adequate funds for engaging appropriate
institutions for obtaining research / training /consultancy services for
tackling field problems. This would enhance their capacity to respond to
emerging problems, enhance their credibility and would also help to make the
system demand driven.
Higher operational support
Client
orientation demands location specificity, on-farm experimentation and constant
and meaningful interaction with farmers. In addition, the system should have
enough flexibility to quickly respond to unanticipated field level problems.
All these require more manpower, adequate field staff and support for travel
and subsistence. Depleting contingency support is a major constraint.
In the public
extension system, the situation is, if anything, worse; limited operational
funds have resulted in inefficient utilisation of
existing manpower. "Allocation for operating expenses in State Departments
of Agriculture is around 15 % whereas a fully functional extension system
should have 30-35% for operating expenses" (Swanson, B. (1996) Innovations
in Technology Dissemination Component of NATP, Delhi, mimeo.).
Incentives and rewards
Institutionalising client orientation in the system necessitates
suitable changes in the incentive and reward structure. The present system has
contributed to-the alienation of formal research system from farm realities.
"In general, researchers do not perceive on-farm research as a vehicle for
professional advancement on its own" (Jha, D,
and Kandaswamy,A.(1994)Decentralising
Agricultural Research and Technology Transfer in India, ICAR, New Delhi and
IFPRI, Washington DC (mimeo).). Merit based promotion, redefinition of staff
appraisal and performance criteria to reflect client orientation more strongly
and its rigorous implementation are essential. Performance evaluation
procedures are virtually missing in the public extension system. Appropriate
evaluation procedures to promote innovations in participatory extension
approaches should be designed and implemented.
|
Experiences
on farmers participation in agricultural technology development from
different parts of the world are presently available6-7 e9 Most of them are
in varietal selection (eg.
KRIBHCO Indo-British Rainfed Farming project,
India) and plant protection (controt of Cassava
mosaic, Uganda). Some' cases provide for farmers' involvement in trial design
(eg. effect of body condition at calving and subsequentnutrition on health and productivity of Ndama cows) and in trial management (eg.
community tsetse trapping, Kenya). Experiences of collaborative experiences
are also widely reported. In India, for instance, Qayum(1995)10
has reported a successful collaborative programme
for non-pesticidal management of red headed
caterpillar involving various research institutions, farmers and NGOs in
Hyderabad. Attempts to organise farmer research
groups are also reported, (eg: dryland
Applied research and development Project, Kenya; Community Tsetse Trapping,
Kenya). Reportedly, farmer participation in research has greater potential in
varietal selection, working out beneficial
rotations and other agronomic practices, developing soil and water
conservation techniques, watershed management, disease recognition and
assessment of susceptibility, biological control, integrated pest management
etc. Most
of these initiatives reported in the literature are from NGOs. In much of
South Asia, NGOs have taken the lead in promoting group management of common
resources. Though better equipped with group formation and diagnostic skills,
their technical expertise, capacity for experimentation and wide scale
replication of approaches remain limited. The public sector must come forward
and collaborate with these NGOs to address this weakness. Emerging policy
implications are as follows. A
particular feature of many NGO approaches is that they are deeply empowering;
they involve long-term face-to-face support by NGOs to farmers groups in
identifying and addressing their problems, and help farmers to gain the
confidence to take joint action in resource management and to articulate their
demands on government services. This approach requires long-term
concentration of resources in a few areas. By contrast, government services
have to spread their resources more thinly, and the best way they can help to
achieves a functional kind of participation in which enhanced interaction
with farmers helps government to perform its mandated functions such as
research and extension. Several conditions have to be met before public
sector researchers can implement participatory approaches effectively. First,
institutes should be committed to produce results which are of use to the
identified clients. Second, the performance criteria, reward and incentive
that favour delivering technologies that meet
client needs, has to be provided. Third, scientists will need training in
participatory methods. |
B. Social
Science Skills
Within the
ICAR, social sciences, policy and management sciences account for 7.5% of the
personnel. In CGIAR institutions they constitute 18% ( CGIAR, (1996), Future
Role of CGIAR in Policy and Public Management Research, CGIAR Secretariat,
Washington.). Expansion of Social Science positions in the ICAR/SAU system
should be a priority. Scientists and extension agents need to be updated with
skills some of which are generic, but all are essential to research arid
extension in rainfed farming, such as,
·
needs assessment technique, including the role of such techniques
as Participatory Rural Appraisal
·
understanding of farmers risk-averting practices and their implications
for the design of research and extension and the formulation of recommendations
·
modes of working in multi-organisation
partnership with research and extension agencies within and outside the public
sector
·
management of the cycle of research projects, from preparation
through implementation to review, including the conduct of participatory,
on-farm research and eliciting of feedback from farmers
·
the preparation and management of research and service contracts
with commercial organisations and NGOs.
As many of the
technologies for rainfed agriculture are
knowledge-based and need community action (integrated pest management,
integrated plant and soil nutrient management, management of common property
resources, etc,) farmers' groups have to be organised
and sustained at the grassroots level. Apart from a sound knowledge in
technical field, the following skills are going to be crucial for extension
agents:
·
group formation
·
development of leadership skills
·
conflict. resolution and negotiation between different interest
groups
·
management of common property resources
·
use of different types of media
·
communication, project preparation, data collection, analysis and
documentation
References
1.
Okali, C. Sumberg, J. and
Farrington, J.(1994), Farmer Participatory Research: Rhetoric and Reality,
Intermediate Technology Publications, London.
2.
Haverkort, B and Zeeuw,
H. (1991), Development of Technologies Towards Sustainable Agriculture:
Institutional Implications, In: Rivera, W. M. and Gustafson, D, J. (eds.)
Agricultural Extension: World Wide Institutional Evolution and Forces for
Change, Elsevier, London.
3.
Martin A and Sherrington, J. (1996),
Participatory Research Methods: Implementation, Effectiveness and Institutional
Linkages, Paper for the ODA/NRSP Socio-Economic Methodology workshop, ODI, UK.
4.
Scoones, I. and Thompson, J. (1994), Knowledge,
Power and Agriculture- Towards a Theoretical Understanding', In: Scoones, I. and Thompson, J. (eds.), Beyond Farmer First:
Rural People's Knowledge, Agricultural Research and Extension Practice,
Intermediate Technology Publications, London.
5.
Qayum, M.A (1995), Collaborative Approach and
Participatory Technology Development, Paper presented in the Workshop on
Participatory Techniques for Identification of Research and Development
Problems, NAARM, Hyderbad.
|
October, 1997 |
|
|
John Farrington |
Rasheed Sulaiman
V and Suresh Pal |
The paper is based
on a wider ICAR research study on Sustainable Rainfed
Agriculture Development.
|
NCAP
has been established by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)
with a view to upgrading agricultural economics research through integration
of economics input in planning, designing, and evaluation of agricultural
research programmes and strengthening the
competence in agricultural policy analysis within the Council Overseas
Development Institute (ODI) established in 1960, is a private, non-profit
policy research Institute, located at London (U.K) NCAP Policy Briefs are intended to
contribute to the debates on important agricultural policy issues. |