This paper is based on a preliminary report dated April 1995, on the Strategic Framework for Agricultural Design Team for Broadening Access to Agriculture Thrust (BATAT). BATAT is the Department of Agriculture policy which formulates the implementing strategy aimed at transforming the governments’ services and reorienting the budget in agriculture in order that the provisions of the national constitution as well as the requirements of the Reconstruction and Development Programmes as well as the Growth Employment and Redistribution Strategies are met. BATAT is embedded in the white paper on agricultural policy and is interwoven with the budget re-prioritisation process to be undertaken in the provinces. The objectives of BATAT are to design and establish mechanisms for broadening access to agriculture for previously excluded farmers in terms of their needs for financial services, human resource development, technology development, delivery systems and marketing services. 

The report of the Technology Design Team whose mission was to make proposals on how to facilitate a participatory process which broadens the focus of research and technology support, to ensure it is suitable for different farming systems, with the emphasis of the needs of the new clients and taking cognisance of indigenous knowledge and coping strategies, seems relevant to share with this workshop. 

The Technology Design Team organized workshops to 

1. Provide a forum for the farming community and policy makers to examine the potential to technology development and usage within their environments.
2. Identify future challenges and explore ways in which to broaden access for the clients who had been previously excluded from the system.

This paper summarises the proceedings of these workshops. 

Introduction 

Backgound 

Historically farming services in the Republic of South Africa were founded on two parallel structures having little of no formal links between each other. The first served the commercial agriculture which predominantly resided within the white community, while the other served subsistence farming, typical of informal systems found within the black communities. 

A generalised statistical analysis, categorises farmers according to their resources and contribution to national food production as follows: 

1. Resource poor households (no land, money, in rural areas) 31%
2. Small holders (small piece of land) 56%
2. Emerging farmers 13%
3. Commercial farmers 0.2%

The Current Scenario 

The current scenario is a summary of the deliberation made in the three provinces. The provincial and the scientists’ perspective represent views of some of the stakeholders (in the case the end user and the designer of the technology). It would therefore be foolhardy to claim that all the role players and their views have been included in this draft and preliminary report. 

The Farmers’ Perspective 

The overall view from the provinces concerning technology development is that traditional approaches to research and extension have failed to bring about satisfactory increased in agricultural production to resource poor farmers. The reports describe the technology as being inappropriate, inaccessible and that there has not been adequate training in the use of the existing facilities. 

To be relevant, the technology should address the farmer’s priority production problems. The farmers were not consulted on the design of the technology and were expected to accept and adopt something they knew little about. The current scenario can best be described as an era that offers technology that increases output per unit of land requiring additional labour and capital input (in the form of purchased inputs and equipment). This is the reverse of what is needed from the perspective of the small holder farmer who has generally little capital and labour and has no security of land tenure. Another problem is that of energy. The energy crisis is closely linked to agricultural and environmental decline. This crisis first manifests itself on the over-reliance on wood fuel in the face of the disappearing forests. The second is the over-reliance on human labour for agricultural production. The shortage of animal traction for cultivation also means that possibilities for increased production per unit of land and labour are minimal. 

Most of the black farmers have small holdings of land, soils are poor and they farm under unfavourable climates. The majority of these farmers have little capital and lack access to financial institutions for inputs and outputs. Most of the farmers are women, are elderly, have poor health support systems and low levels of education. Management and decision making skills are poor due to lack of access to information and training. The previous’ government policy aggravated the situation resulting in inadequate public investment in infrastructure. This resulted in poor rural education, agricultural services such as extension and research not available and accessible. Poor government policy and poor public investment led to a lack of private investment in farming, farm input supply and markets. As a result of the disparity in provision of services, these areas are characterised by increased populations surviving on marginal lands. Increased populations have put great pressure on available water resources and environmental degradation has reduced the availability and accessibility to water. 

The Scientist Perspective 

The scientist (research institutions, universities, NGO’s) summarised their problem as that of lack of policy and long term strategic management in research and the linkage mechanism between agricultural research institutes and their clients. Lack of clarity on how these linkages can and should be strengthened has also resulted in the weakening of farmer - extension - researcher linkages. From the scientists’ perspective, it is a difficult process to address the needs of small holder farmers because there is no existing information on their needs. The operations are also limited by lack of basic data and reliable production statistics on rural areas. The poor communication between researcher and farmer and the lack of farmer participation slows technology innovation. As such not much research has gone into the use of indigenous crops, resulting in poorly conceived agricultural projects in some areas. There is also no proper co-ordination of research activities conducted by the research institutions, the Universities and the private sector. There is therefore competition for funds and grants and an inclination towards basic research as opposed to adaptive and problem solving research. Where communication linkages have existed, the success has been minimal due to the fact that farmers are illiterate and the extension officers sometimes not motivated to perform their duties. 

Workshop Recommendations 

Farmers Recommendation 

From the farmer’s view, the BATAT initiative is critical for them to increase and sustain the contribution of agriculture to economic growth in South Africa. All research efforts will be wasted if they do not lead to wide scale adoption of the technology by the farmers. The technology has to be relevant to the needs and objectives of the farmer and to his/her household and appropriate to the household’s resources and operating circumstances. 

The ultimate objective of technology development from the farmer’s perspective should be to maximise the output of relevant technology to serve the priority needs of farmers identified by policy makers as target groups. National goals should determine the priority to be given to research efforts. This exercise leaves open the questions of who is best able to produce that technology and who may be expected to pay for its development. 

The Scientists’ Recommendations 

Policy Framework 

1. The workshop proposed that a research strategy for agriculture and rural development should be a Systems Approach. The following three aspects (critical success factors) must be in place:

• active farmers participation
• multidisciplinary research teams
• multidisciplinary institutional interactions (including NGO’s)

2. Co-ordination of research should take place at provincial level. For this to be a success there should be a research co-ordinating committee representing the following institutions; Department of Agriculture, Research Institutions, Universities and Farmers’ Unions. Such a committee could be chaired by a representative from the Department of Agriculture. The main task of such a team would include the following functions:

• identify target areas for research;
• identify research priorities and needs
• put together a team to address these problems and to do the research;
• to maintain a databank of all existing research.

3. There should be an active liaison between provincial co-ordinating committees. Mechanism to accomplish this could be through electro mailing and an initial bi-annual meeting for information exchange to be facilitated by BATAT.

4. The provinces should take cognisance of the need to re-orientate and sensitise all stakeholders to the systems approach.

Delivery Mechanism 

Bearing in mind the policy framework and the critical success factors of active farmer participation, multi-discliplinary research teams and multi-institutional teams, the delivery of technology will be automatically achieved using any of the following methodologies: 

• rapid rural appraisal;
• participatory rural appraisal;
• community/farmer action planning.

These processed enables and involves situational analysis, planning, implementation with built-in evaluation mechanism. Delivery to the end user can be effective if user friendly language is implemented. Terms like technology transfer should be reviewed. Terms like providing, designing accessible information should be encouraged. 

Reseracher identified Topics for Research 

The technology to be used for smallholder farmers should take into consideration the following factors: 

• should be low cost and affordable;
• ensure sustainable environmental management;
• use available local resources;
• interventions to be area specific.

Conceptual Issues 

The Version 

The vision and the proposals made is that agriculture technology development and research should empower people to derive and maximise benefits from the use of natural resources. 

The Constraints 

These are certain constraints that need to be addressed before the vision is attained. One of the major constraints is the lack of clarity on how research will be conducted and how it should be delivered. Linked to this is the establishment of farmer - extension - research linkages. The financial and budgeting implications this has especially of government resources and those of the research institutions poses threats to many stakeholders. It is therefore imperative that there is a broad policy framework and long term strategic planning to address these issues. 

The Opportunities 

Implicit in research and development is the adoption of new improved technologies that are:- 

• relevant to the farming household’s needs and household production objectives;
• appropriate to the household’s operational circumstances and resources.

Links between agricultural research institutes and their clients who are the farmers and technology agents are vital for successful technology development and delivery. 

Key factors to strengthening links: 

1. Agricultural development and research policies;
2. Resources and organizational structures of institutions involved;
3. Technical issues such as the existing knowledge base, available technologies and diversity of farming systems.

Support Activities 

for the technology development to be successful, the following support activities are necessary. 

1. Integrating participatory adaptive research (farming systems research approach into public sector research systems).
2. Establishing linkages with international agricultural researches centres to use research resources more efficiently.
3. A policy environment that stimulates interests and investment in the commodity system that is being targeted. This will enhance the evolution of technology systems.
4. Policy environment must offer incentives to potential user of technology to invest in the production of technology. These include:

• legislative mandates of the research institutions;
• intellectual rights and patent laws especially if the private sector is to be encouraged to invest in its agricultural application;
• rights of government agents to enter into contracts;
• financing and granting mechanisms that encourage competition for research resources and help leverage resources;
• to encourage private sector participation and investment curtaining policies and regulations may need reform;
• set priorities for research and through analysis of policies facilitate policy dialogue.
• reform of the research institutes as well as the legislative mandates governing them;
• establishing efficient planning, financing, contracting and monitoring mechanism;
• developing a sustainable level of finance;
• policies, procedures and partnerships that speed up the development, adaptation, review, release and commercialization of profitable technologies;
• ensure the multiplication, distribution, marketing and extension of agricultural technologies;
• strong client research linkages;
• promoting active collaboration between technical specialists and social scientists to encourage attention to social interests from research conceptualisation through implementation;
• being selective at the design state and rejecting proposals that do not meet relevant criteria;
• the challenge is to establish an appropriate balance between research that focuses on production and supply and research that focuses on market and demand.
• a sustainable approach that focuses on developing and transferring technologies that continue to contribute to food security.

Conclusion 

In order to develop suitable agricultural technology which can be practically applied and which will contribute to the development of all communities, society at large and the national economy, a healthy research capacity will have to be maintained. Strong links between researchers and clients, a supporting policy framework and suitable funding will from the backbone of such a research capacity. 

Co-ordination and prioritisation of research needs identified in the various provinces must form the framework for research programmes. To achieve this, suitable linkages must be designed and maintained. A farming systems approach with active farmer participation will ensure that technology is developed to the satisfaction of the client. 

References 

National Department of Agriculture, 1995: "BATAT" proceedings, April 1995.