Chapter 13
Extension and training for SARM

Better land husbandry (or SARM) requires that soil and water conservation and soil fertility management be integrated with other production oriented interventions in agriculture and rural resource management. It is therefore clear that the promotion of SARM requires that it be executed through the existing extension services rather than through separate soil conservation cadre. The central strategy in SARM is that conservation measures be linked directly, and in the short term, to significant yield increases for participating farmers. However important the off-farm benefits of soil conservation, the key to arousing interest and commitment remains rapid and visible yield increases (IFAD 1992).

SARM at the small-scale farm level requires an integrated extension message. There is therefore a need to promote close cooperation between subject matter specialists, and extension services responsible for crops, livestock, horticulture, forestry etc. Agroforestry, by definition requires the integration of the traditional disciplines of agriculture and forestry. Existing domains of expertise and departmental structure must be replaced by a combined approach to the integration of trees and shrubs within the farming system. Illusions that this is a task for conventional forestry must be removed. Personal experience leads to the conclusion that it is easier to train an agricultural extension worker about trees, than it is to train a conventional forester about the needs of small-scale farmers. Extension cadres should be broadened and restructured so that without necessarily increasing total staff numbers, they are more `generalist' extension workers able to deliver land husbandry and conservation-with-production messages, including as appropriate an agroforestry component (IFAD 1992).

Agricultural extension

Extension has long been grounded in the diffusion model of agricultural development in which technologies are passed from research scientists via extensionists to farmers. Agricultural extension conventionally comprises several of the following functions (Farrington 1994):

• Diagnosis of farmers' socio-economic and agro-ecological conditions and of their opportunities and constraints.
• Message transfer through direct contact between extension agent and farmer or indirect contact involving intermediaries such as `contact farmers' or voluntary organizations; through training courses and through mass media. Messages may comprise advice, awareness creation, skill development and education.
• Feedback to researchers on farmers' reactions to new technology to refine future research agenda.
• Development of linkages with researchers, government planners, NGOs, farmers' organizations, banks, and the private sector. In remote areas extension agents have taken on a number of these functions directly.
• Monitoring of the extension system, and evaluation of its performance at farm level.

Reasons for farmer non-adoption of recommended practices

Farmers who chose not to adopt the recommendations of research and extension workers were often labelled `laggards', or accused of being ignorant, uncooperative, conservative and unwilling to change. Although such sentiments are still all too common, there is a growing realisation, and with it grudging acceptance, that farmers are behaving rationally when they apparently reject the "benefits" of extension recommendations. This is not surprising when typically agricultural and conservation extension projects and programmes are designed by outside "experts" who fail to consult and involve farmers in the planning process and as a result all too often the problems targeted for solution are not those perceived by the intended beneficiaries as being immediate priorities.

Likewise it is now increasingly apparent, to those working with small-scale farmers, that they are far from being conservative land users nor are they reluctant to change their traditional farming practices where there are benefits from doing so (Sands 1986). There is also a growing body of evidence to show that farmers constantly experiment, adapt and innovate with the aim of making adaptive improvements to their farming systems (Richards 1985 and Chambers et al 1989). If farmers fail to adopt recommendations made by the extension services, its not usually from ignorance, but because they consider the recommendations to be wrong. In some cases farmers believe (often correctly) that a recommendation will not do the job its intended to do, in other cases the recommendations are deemed as inappropriate to the needs of their families and their farming circumstances (Shaxson et al 1989).

A recent study (Fujisaka 1991) of upland agriculture projects in South-east Asia found that farmers often failed to adopt the various SARM technologies promoted. The range of technologies included contour hedgerows, bench terraces, earth bunds, multiple cropping legumes, perennial crops, contour tillage and alley cropping. All introduced to farmers because they were believed to offer the opportunity for increased yields on a sustainable basis. The following have been identified as the main reasons for non adoption (after Fujisaka 1991, Pretty 1995):

• Absence of a problem - there was no adoption of erosion-controlling technologies in the Philippines and Indonesia where soils were deep, fertile and showed little signs of erosion.
• Inappropriate innovation - permanent cropping and terracing recommended in Laos did not address the main problems for farmers, namely weed infestation.
• General unawareness - rare for farmers to be unaware of soil nutrient and erosion problems but could be unaware of soil borne pests such as nematodes, which may also not be obvious to researchers.
• Facility of the innovation - the innovation does not work, for instance yields of crops grown with hedgerows are lower than farmers own practice (this was the unfortunate experience of a GTZ agroforestry project in Fiji, Evelyn Reijber personal communication).
• Incorrect identification of adoption domain - researchers misunderstood reasons for local practices and targeted innovations inappropriately.
• Appropriateness of farmers' practices - local practices were often as effective as contour hedgerows for erosion control and biomass recycling.
• Adverse off-site effects - planting of fast growing exotic trees (e.g. Eucalyptus) in the upper catchment reducing downstream water supplies.
• Generation of new problems - project recommended permanent terraces in Laos became so infested with weeds that farmers were forced to shift to new fields; napier grass hedgerows in Indonesia and the Philippines caused the resurgence of white grubs, a pest of rice and maize.
• High cost - labour and material costs for terrace construction, hedgerow establishment are immediate but benefits may accrue only in time; annual maintenance costs e.g. pruning hedgerows may be high and there may be an high short term opportunity cost to land planted to hedgerows.
• Poor extension - incorrect demonstration of a technology loses interest of farmers and undermines the credibility of the work; tendency to work with `progressive' farmers only, and so misunderstood constraints of others.
• Insecure land tenure - tenant farmers generally less likely to improve their land where investments are in trees or terracing.
• Farmers may be `mining resources' - farmers may be mining resources either because they do not plan to stay in the area (e.g. the Chinese migrant ginger growers in Fiji - personal observation), or because of `us-before-them' resource competition.
• Negative social connotations - Moslem upland farmers in Sumatra would not kill and eat the pigs that were a major rice crop pest nor keep watchdogs to control the pigs.
• Inappropriate incentives - adopters in Laos constructed ditches along contours for food from the World Food Programme, but then refused to do further work when food payments stopped.

Some prerequisites for adoption

The examination across several projects of adoption and non-adoption of sustainability-enhancing innovations lead one investigator to the following conclusions as to the prerequisites for adoption (Fujisaka 1991):

• Problems and target farmers must be carefully identified: target farmers must face and should be aware of the problems addressed by the innovations; and such problems musty be major or key problems faced by these farmers.
• Innovations must work under the target conditions, and must be better than or equal to farmers' practices in terms of solving the problems; they must not work against other farmer problem-solving practices, and must not create additional more serious problems.
• Near-term costs, actual and opportunity costs of adoption cannot be too high; present survival should be assured prior to potential adopters' investments in possible long-term gains; and such investments cannot be too risky.
• Institutional development is needed to the degree that innovations are correctly communicated from research to extension and from extension to farmers.
• Policies are needed that encourage investments in innovations by land users. among others, such policies must balance potential adopters' needs for secure land tenure against the potential for systems-destructive resource grabbing and mining by segments of the target population.
• Adoption may be facilitated by farmer-participation and must be examined in terms of `real or spurious', and should be recognised in forms not necessarily promoted by extension projects.

In addition to the above points it is worthwhile considering the opinions of farmers in an highland conservation project in northern Thailand as to what they considered to be the obstacles to the adoption compared to the specifications

As part of a case study (Qwist-Hoffmann 1994) of a project in the Central Highlands Thailand farmers were asked as to what were the obstacles to the adoption of specific technologies promoted by the project. Similarly they were asked what specifications they would require these technologies to meet in order to consider their adoption. It is instructive to compare the obstacles and specifications where it can be clearly seen that farmers were concerned about the perceived costs associated with each technology, and wanted to be sure that there would be tangible productive benefits if adopted (see box 50).

The T and V extension approach

Most conventional extension systems work in ways that ignore local groups and institutions. The tendency has been to deal with individual farmers or households, who are selected on the basis of the likelihood of adopting new technologies. They are in turn expected to encourage further adoption in their community through a demonstration effect (Pretty 1995). This approach is exemplified by a type of extension that came to be known as the training and visit (T and V) system. A system that has been widely adopted within the Asia Pacific region often on the recommendation of the World Bank.

As part of the T and V system the grassroots extension agents would receive regular topical training, which they would pass on during regular visits to a limited number of selected contact farmers with the hope that this would be communicated on to all farmers within the contact farmers community. But as the contact farmers were commonly selected on the basis of literacy, wealth, readiness to change and progressiveness this often set them apart from the rest of the community. The secondary transfer of the technical messages, from contact farmers to community, has been much less successful than predicted and adoption rates are commonly very low amongst non contact farmers.

An important limitation of the T and V approach has been to deeply institutionalise extension's top-down hierarchy, thus preventing extension systems from being learning organizations (Pretty 1995).

Source FAO/PUCDP 1994

A recent review of World Bank supported agricultural extension projects (Purcell 1993) noted that the T and V approach had been successful in the green evolution context providing that certain basic principles were met: clearly-defined farming systems; technology `on-the-shelf', with a high benefit cost (B:C) ratio; and complementary resources readily available, especially in irrigated areas.

However outside favourable areas, the performance of T and V based extension projects has generally been weak (Purcell 1993):

• Returns to extension are high only if prices are right and complementary services are available (including input supply). Frequently these conditions are not met, especially in the more difficult environments. Extension has generally been more successful as a component of wider projects which aim to meet at least some of these conditions.
• Inadequate understanding of farming systems, and of farmers' opportunities and constraints (including their risk aversion practices and coping strategies) commonly means that recommendations are inappropriate.
• The number of relevant messages for difficult environments is generally limited and without a steady stream of new technologies, the marginal returns to successive visits by extensionists are likely to diminish rapidly.
• Current extension models (i.e. especially T and V) are generally too expensive to be fiscally sustainable beyond the duration of external credits.
• The specific needs, opportunities an constraints faced by women farmers have generally been neglected.
• The contact farmer mechanism of T and V rarely works as well as intended, and group organization has rarely been a recognised component of extensionists activities. For both these reasons the impact of T and V on human resource development has generally been weak.

Need for training¹

Training is a vital ingredient of sustainable agriculture programmes at all levels. It is necessary not only for programme personnel but also for the participating land users. Developing skills amongst the beneficiaries not only `demystifies' technology, but also acts as a powerful incentive to increased involvement in conservation activities. Critical to the effective promotion of SARM is the development and implementation of innovative training programmes for the following priority groups (Douglas 1996b):

• Farm households and other rural based natural resource managers - i.e. those directly involved in managing the land for productive purposes;
• Development workers (notably government and NGO technicians) - i.e. those expected to work with the land managers in an advisory and facilitating capacity;
• College and university students - i.e. potential future development workers.

Given that participatory methods of working with farmers have yet to be widely adopted within government, NGO and educational circles there is a further group that need to be educated about the principles, practice and benefits of SARM/better land husbandry. These are the policy makers and senior officials responsible for policy formulation, budget allocation, approval of work plans, and technical direction for natural resource related development programmes. There is little point in training the field level development workers in a new approach if those who take the decisions, on what their development strategies and work priorities should be, have little if any understanding of what is involved in the new thinking on sustainable land use (Douglas 1996b).

Types of training

To assist in the widespread adoption of SARM at the field level it is believed that individual countries will need to develop their own specific package of training activities. Such a comprehensive programme can be expected to group individual training activities according to the following four broad categories:

• Farmer training;
• In-service training of government and ngo development workers;
• Awareness creation/sensitization of policy makers and senior officials;
• Pre-service training in colleges and universities.

Farmer training

The underlying principle of much of the past farmer training conducted by soil and water conservation specialists has been to demonstrate to farmers the error of their past ways and to show them how they could do it better in the future. It is now clear that there is little point in designing educational programmes intended to explain to farmers the problems of soil degradation and the need for them to do something about it. They usually already know but have more urgent and pressing problems requiring all their energies (Hudson 1991).

Farmers have largely been passive recipients in externally conceived training programmes delivered by `outsiders' (i.e. government or NGO development workers). Typically there has been a one way flow of information from the technician to the farmer with the implicit assumption that the technical knowledge resides with the technician. There is a need for new innovative teaching methods which respect and build on the wealth of local knowledge residing within the farming community. The aim should be to create a learning environment in which farmers have the opportunity to learn for themselves through observation, discussion and participation in practical learning-by-doing field exercises (e.g. conducting their own comparative technology trials).

When developing farmer training programmes it needs to be remembered that in most countries the numbers of extension staff available to work with farmers at the village level are very limited. Given that the revenue budget resources available for such work are also limited this situation is unlikely to change in the near future. In addition to the failure of past top-down teaching methods there is thus a practical reason underlying the need to look for alternative extension approaches to disseminate the SARM/better land husbandry message. It is believed that future farmer training programmes should investigate and make greater use of farmer-to-farmer training methods. However, participatory extension approaches are not without their own problems (Box 51).

Source field survey Qwist-Hoffmann 1994

Farmer centred training methods

A number of informal and formal methods have been used in different countries to enable farmers, rather than extension workers, to take the lead in disseminating information and directly training other farmers, notably (after Reijntjes et al 1992):

• Informal individual peer teaching - farmers who have developed, or adopted an improved land husbandry practice, could pass on their ideas and knowledge (by discussion, demonstration and practical teaching) to other farmers.
• Informal group training - farmers who have developed, or adopted an improved land husbandry practice, could act as trainers for visiting groups of farmers from other villages, or could serve as key resource persons in farmer workshops held in other communities.
• Formal group training - experienced and innovative farmers could act as trainers in formal farmer training courses. This may require that they receive training on how to train other farmers and that they are involved in joint planning of the training courses (content, methodology etc).
• Study tours - small groups of farmers, selected by their community, could visit local research stations, neighbouring agricultural/forestry projects, or farmers and farmer groups in other areas who have developed, or already adopted one or more improved land husbandry practices. The group would observe and discuss trials and experiences with adopting and adapting particular practices, in order to pick up ideas (about both the technology and experimental methods) they could try out in their own area. On return to their village they would share what they have learnt with others in the community.
• Field days/exchange visits - field days could be arranged whereby a group of farmers visit one or more farmers fields to observe and discuss the progress and results of on-farm trials or experience with the adoption of an improved practice. Exchange visits would involve farmers from two or more different areas visiting each others farms to observe, discuss and exchange information on what each group is doing.
• Farmer workshops - farmers could be brought together within adhoc workshops to systematically assess their situation, prioritise their problems and to seek solutions. Such participatory appraisal and planning could be an important learning process for rural communities. Individual workshops may be restricted to groups of farmers selected on the basis of common problems and interests, or they may seek to be representative of the village as a whole. The latter being needed when the issues to be addressed require community, rather than individual household action (e.g. the better management of communal grazing and woodland resources).
• Regular group meetings (farmer field schools) - farmers involved in investigating one or more potential solutions to a certain problem would meet together regularly (e.g. every 2-3 weeks during the growing season for crop experiments, or critical periods for fodder availability for pasture improvement experiments). Preferably in the fields or grazing lands where an experiment is being conducted. During each meeting farmers would observe and discuss progress with the experiment and look at the possibilities for adapting and improving individual treatments. Such meetings would provide a forum for farmers to review problems with the trials and to seek possible solutions. The experience farmers gain from observing, measuring and discussing the trials could be expected to improve farmers' understanding of how and why to conduct and monitor experiments. (For further details on the farmer field school approach see following section.)

Farmer field school approach

The Farmer Field School approach (FFS) is an innovative approach to participatory farmer centred learning. It was developed by an FAO Project in Southeast Asia as a way for small-scale rice farmers to investigate for themselves the benefits of adopting integrated pest management (IPM) practices in their paddy fields. It is believed that this specific approach, although originally developed for IPM purposes, could be used as a way to enable farmers to learn about, and investigate for themselves, the costs and benefits of alternative SARM practices. The characteristics of the approach are as follows (after FAO-IPM 1993):

• Farmers as experts. Farmers `learn-by-doing' i.e. they carry out for themselves the various activities related to the particular farming/forestry practice they want to study and learn about. This could be related to annual crops, livestock/fodder production, orchards or forest management. The key thing is that farmers conduct their own field studies. Their training is based on comparison studies (of different treatments) and field studies that they, not the extension/research staff conduct. In so doing they become experts on the particular practice they are investigating.
• The field is the primary learning material. All learning is based in the field. The rice paddy, yam plot, maize field, banana plantation, coffee/fruit orchard, woodlot or grazing area is where farmers learn. Working in small sub-groups they collect data in the field, analyze the data, make action decisions based on their analyses of the data, and present their decisions to the other farmers in the field school for discussion, questioning and refinement.
• Extension workers as facilitators, not teachers. The role of the extension worker is very much that of a facilitator rather than a conventional teacher. Once the farmers know what it is they have to do, and what it is that they can observe in the field, the extension worker takes a back seat role, only offering help and guidance when asked to do so. Presentations during group meetings are the work of the farmers not the extension worker, with the members of each working group assuming responsibility for presenting their findings in turn to their fellow farmers. The extension worker may take part in the subsequent discussion sessions but as a contributor, rather than leader, in arriving at an agreed consensus on what action needs to be taken at that time.
• The curriculum is integrated. The curriculum is integrated. Crop husbandry, animal husbandry, horticulture, silviculture, land husbandry are considered together with ecology, economics, sociology and education to form a holistic approach. Problems confronted in the field are the integrating principle.
• Training follows the seasonal cycle. Training is related to the seasonal cycle of the practice being investigated. For annual crops this would extend from land preparation to harvesting. For fodder production would include the dry season to evaluate the quantity and quality at a time of year when livestock feeds are commonly in short supply. For tree production, and conservation measures such as hedgerows and grass strips, training would need to continue over several years for farmers to be able to see for themselves the full range of costs and benefits.
• Regular group meetings. Farmers meet at agreed regular intervals. For annual crops such meetings may be every 1 or 2 weeks during the cropping season. For other farm/forestry management practices the time between each meeting would depend on what specific activities need to be done, or be related to critical periods of the year when there are key issues to observe and discuss in the field.
• Learning materials are learner generated. Farmers generate their own learning materials, from drawings of what they observe, to the field trials themselves. These materials are always consistent with local conditions, are less expensive to develop, are controlled by the learners and can thus be discussed by the learners with others. Learners know the meaning of the materials because they have created the materials. Even illiterate farmers can prepare and use simple diagrams to illustrate the points they want to make.
• Group dynamics/team building. Training includes communication skills building, problem solving, leadership and discussion methods. Farmers require these skills. Successful activities at the community level require that farmers can apply effective leadership skills and have the ability to communicate their findings to others.

Farmer Field Schools are conducted to create a learning environment in which farmers can master and apply specific land management skills. The emphasis is on empowering farmers to implement their own decisions in their own fields. Within this form of training problems are seen as challenges, not constraints. Farmers groups are taught numerous analytical methods. Problems are posed to groups in a graduated manner such that trainees can build confidence in their ability to identify and tackle any problem they might encounter in the field. Putting the classroom in the field allows the field to be the learning material and the farmer to be able to learn from real live examples. Putting the classroom in the field means that the educator (extension worker) must come to terms with the farmer in the farmer's domain.

Principles, not packages

The need is to move away from package type extension training programmes such as the conventional T and V (teach and visit) system, which rely on weekly atomised messages disseminated through contact farmers. Training for SARM should take a broad integrated approach to working with farmers based on the principle that farmers have a desire to learn how to be better farmers in order to best optimise the returns to their factors of production (land, labour, capital and knowledge).

The strategy should be to teach principles, any activity encompasses several principles, principles bring out cause and effect relationships, principles help farmers discover and learn, principles help farmers to learn so that they can continue to learn. Standardised extension packages have nothing to do with learning and do not encourage learning. In the long run they are neither cost effective nor effective at improving the quality of farmers management skills. Skilled farmers can optimise yields and maintain soil productivity independently of others. Furthermore packaged approaches increase the dependence of farmers on central planners (FAO-IPM 1993).

In-service training

Promotion of a participatory approach to SARM generates a need to substantially modify current training approaches and curricula so as to create new attitudes, skills and awareness within extension staff and other development workers. Changing from a top-down to bottom-up approach creates retraining needs at all levels (Segerros and Cheatle 1993).

Experience suggests that before the better land husbandry approach to SARM can be widely adopted existing agricultural, forestry and soil conservation research and extension officers will need retraining. This is because they are likely to require a major reorientation in their thinking and way of working, away from the conventional top down physical planning approach to soil conservation, to a bottom-up holistic better land husbandry approach. One in which the conservation dimension is integrated into productive farming systems.

What is needed is a broad based in-service training programme with practical training covering the following (Douglas 1996b):

• Methodological training on how to follow the process of participatory planning for better land husbandry (this to include the use of Rapid and Participatory Rural Appraisal (RRA/PRA) tools and the Farming Systems Development (FSD) approach);
• Simple field survey methods for land evaluation including qualitative techniques for the field assessment of land degradation; and
• Practical field based technical training on the use of simple tools (e.g. the A'frame) and better land husbandry technologies (e.g. inter-cropping, alley cropping, green manuring, cover crops, compost and other organic matter management practices as well as other appropriate soil and water conservation measures) for improving the conservation effectiveness of hillside farming systems.

In the short term it is believed that a major effort must be put into the development of short practical in-service training along the lines of the above. The aim should be to start with the currently serving development workers in both government and NGO agencies and by means of appropriate training to develop the necessary cadre of subject matter specialists with the inter-disciplinary planning skills for working with farmers for SARM.

Training in the participatory approach to better land husbandry

The participatory approach to better land husbandry involves small inter-disciplinary teams meeting with farmers in a specific geographic area. The task of such a team is to appraise and understand the natural and socio-economic circumstances in which a particular farming community operates, and then to use this information to assist the constituent farm households to develop improved farming systems, that are both productive and conservation effective. The approach is problem driven and the wide range of subject matter that is likely to be encountered means that the team members must work together, each contributing to the analysis and development of recommendations from their different disciplinary backgrounds.

In Africa and S.E. Asia the Commonwealth Secretariat, ASOCON and FAO have to date conducted several 3-4 week in-service training workshops to introduce development workers to the concepts and procedures involved in the `participatory approach to better land husbandry' (Douglas 1988, ASOCON 1990 and 1992, Douglas et al 1991, FAO 1994). The aim of each training exercise has been to reproduce, for the participants, as close to a `real life' situation as possible, hence the teaching emphasis throughout was on `learning by doing'.

At the start of each workshop the participants were divided into working groups with each group taking on the role of an inter-disciplinary participatory appraisal team. Each group was told at the outset that its members were expected to work together, throughout the workshop, and by the end, to have identified potential technical and policy options that would improve the productivity and conservation-effectiveness of the existing farming systems. The group's final conclusions were to be based on an analysis of the actual problems and circumstances facing farmers within a specific area (each working group was assigned its own area of 1-2 villages to study). The training thus provided the participants with the opportunity to learn most of the basic concepts and procedures involved in adopting a participatory approach to better land husbandry through a `hands on', guided practical learning experience. Whereas most of the guidance came from the resource persons much of the learning in practice came from their interaction with the farmers and the other members of their working group.

The training included some semi-formal classroom sessions designed to introduce the participants to the key concepts and procedures. However the main means of instruction was through topic focused group discussions and plenary sessions, and practical group work - both in the classroom and the field. The role of the lectures and handouts was to introduce, at key points in each workshop, the issues involved in the various steps of the better land husbandry approach. The aim was to get the participants thinking about the issues involved and to give them enough background to undertake the next stage in their practical exercise. No more than 20% of the time was taken up with formal teaching. Some 40% of the time was spent in the field in direct contact with farmers. The remaining 40% was taken up with group and plenary discussions, classroom based group work and report writing.

Whereas these training workshops have been used to introduce the participants to a new approach to soil and water conservation they have also been used to introduce a new participatory learning approach. Conventional in-service training of development workers typically relies heavily on a classroom based approach, where most of the teaching is by way of formal lectures with the lecturer seen as the major source of information to be accepted without any serious challenge. The methodology of the ASOCON, Commonwealth Secretariat and FAO workshops has been based on a more participatory style of training which invites challenge - indeed depends on it, accepting that there is no monopoly of wisdom on the side of the resource persons (FAO 1987). Instead such training encourages and expects all the participants to contribute ideas and opinions from their own field experience. Hence the emphasis on topic focused group discussions and plenary sessions, and practical group work - both in the classroom and the field. The role of the resource persons in such training is one of drawing out and giving due weight to the experiences and insights of the participants.

Experience from these training workshops has shown the benefits of starting them off with an initial group and plenary discussion session rather than the more usual keynote paper. The approach was to divide the participants into small groups and ask them to discuss and then report back on one or more specific topics such as:

• What is meant by farmer participation?
• What is land husbandry?

There are two key reasons for starting a training workshop in this way. Firstly, it immediately breaks the participants' expectations that they have come to sit in rows listening to a teacher lecturing at them. Secondly, it gives the resource persons an opportunity to assess the participants current awareness on the issues to be covered during the workshop. Furthermore starting a workshop by having a resource person present his/her ideas on the theme undervalues the experience and ideas of the participants, and encourages them to become passive recipients of the teacher's "words of wisdom." In addition having the initial discussion in smaller groups rather than a plenary session encourages better individual participation from the start.

One of the characteristics of such in-service training is that all of the participants will be serving officers with often many years practical field experience. A participatory style of teaching can usefully draw on this experience for considering specific topics through focused discussion rather than the traditional classroom lecture. This approach can be illustrated with reference to a recent FAO sponsored training exercise in Jamaica (FAO 1996) where the workshop participants were divided into four groups with each group assigned one of the following topics to consider:

• farm household bio-physical circumstances;
• farm household economic and financial circumstances;
• social/cultural and gender (sex and age) considerations within the farm household; and
• elements of the farming system.

Each group was asked to draw upon its members field experience to discuss and determine for its specific topic what were the key issues and why they were important for the promotion of better land husbandry at the small-scale farm level. Rather than have them sit through a lecture on the topic of farm household circumstances it was considered more effective from a learning point of view to have the participants consider the issues for themselves. Each group was required to make a presentation of their conclusions to the rest of the participants. During the discussion following each presentation, the resource persons drew the groups' attention to any issues that might have been overlooked or misunderstood, enabling them to "learn from their mistakes." In addition the resource persons used various points raised during the discussions to show the variety of different factors that need to be taken into consideration when seeking to increase farm production on a sustainable basis.

RRA/PRA training

A variety of organizations have trained development workers in the use of rapid rural appraisal and participatory rural appraisal methods. Some of which has been directed at natural resource management issues.

From a review of a number of published reports of such training (examples being IIED 1989, 1990 and 1991) it would appear that the duration of such training exercises has typically been between 5-14 days. The reports emanating from the short (5-7 days) PRA exercises appear to be very superficial in terms of their appraisal of farmers' circumstances and analysis of the problems. The longer RRA/PRA exercises, 12-14 days, tend to have more information on the farming systems and socio-economic circumstances within the study area. However the best solutions to the identified problems are generally broadscale development options that require a lot more design work before any field level activities could be initiated. A feature of most of the published reports is that whereas participatory techniques have been used to elicit information from farmers the analysis has still largely been done by the "outside" team. Greater involvement of the farmers in the problem analysis and development of solutions would require more time and flexibility than is possible within the confines of a 1-2 week training programme.

The limitations of much of the PRA training on offer can be illustrated by reference to training conducted by an NGO for an FAO watershed management project in Nepal (reviewed in FAO 1995). The training was conducted in December 1993 and lasted 7 days. It followed the following programme:

Day 1 - Introduction to PRA

Day 2 - Mapping and transect walk

Day 3 - Semi structured interview, wealth ranking and seasonality analysis

Day 4 - Time line, time trend and flow diagram

Day 5 - Preference ranking

Day 6 - Mobility map and Venn diagramming

Day 7 - Report writing

The emphasis was on the teaching of PRA tools rather than a participatory approach to watershed management. The value of such short training is questionable particularly when it involves the participants using farmers in order to learn how to use a limited number of PRA techniques. The farmers used in this way would have received very little benefit from the training exercise. Furthermore PRA would have been taught as an end in itself rather than as one of a range of development `tools' that can be used to work with farmers for the promotion of upland conservation and development. Furthermore 7 days is too short a time to gain practical experience with the overall `process' of participatory watershed management planning.

Many advocates of PRA teaching suggest a minimalist approach in which the participants are given a very basic orientation on behaviour and attitudes and a sketchy idea of methods and sent out into the field and told to get on with it. The emphasis is on short training involving an experiential approach in which the participants learn by doing, make mistakes, embrace error and so improve (Chambers 1993b). Such an open approach may work for well educated and highly motivated NGO staff. However experience suggests that it is less successful when dealing with field level government extension workers who are more used to being told what to do. Left to their own devices they may well flounder, uncertain as to what to do next. Hence when training government staff there is need for a more organised and formal structure in which the resource persons can provide a degree of guidance and direction while encouraging the trainees to be innovative and to reappraise their past ways of working with farmers.

Awareness creation

There is little scope for incorporating SARM and the better land husbandry approach into government natural resource management strategies where senior officials and policy makers are unfamiliar with the concepts, principles and practices involved. Such officials therefore need to learn about them. However because of their seniority any programme to educate them about the approach will need to be developed in a diplomatic and subtle way as they can be expected to react negatively to the idea that they need to be trained. Hence the emphasis at this level is on awareness creation or sensitization rather than training as such.

Senior officials can be invited to participate in high level half to one day "consultations" to consider the better land husbandry approach. The invitation should preferably come from someone of equal or preferably higher rank and stress that their participation is sought because the organisers would value their expert opinion on how the new approach might be adopted. The success of such meetings will depend on the ability of the key speaker(s) being able to put over the material briefly, without using technical jargon, and in a way that stresses the social, economic and political benefits of the approach. The highlights of the presentations should be readily available in the form of 1-2 page briefing papers.

Where a pilot government project or innovative NGO has been successful in working with farmers to promote the use of better land husbandry practices at the field level, senior officials can be invited to participate in one or more field days in order to `learn' about the approach. As the guest(s) of honour such officials can be entertained by the farmer-experts who can demonstrate the practices and talk about the production with conservation benefits realised.

There is scope for linking the in-service training of field staff with awareness creation amongst senior officials. The awareness creation strategy would be to invite the regional senior decision makers and heads of the technical bureaux to attend what would effectively be a one day review workshop, held on the last day of a longer 3-4 week in-service training exercise. The final day would begin with the trainees, in their working groups, making semi-formal presentations to the invited senior officials of the conclusions and recommendations of their field study exercises. The presentations should then lead into a general discussion on the policy, institutional and technical implications of the recommendations for further action. Such one day review workshops would also provide a forum in which the invited officials could review the better land husbandry approach with regard to its relevance to the development programmes and institutional structure of the various technical agencies within the region.

Senior officials at the national level will rarely have the time to participate in more than a one-day consultation or seminar. However it is often possible to conduct 2-3 day seminars/workshops for what can be described as middle level officials. That is for project managers or the technical heads of regional/district/parish offices with direct responsibility for the work of the field level development workers. Such meetings can be used as a forum for introducing the concepts, principles and practices of SARM/better land husbandry with the participants expected to review and discuss them in the context of their appropriateness to the work of their staff and geographic area of responsibility.

Pre-service training

There is a critical need to improve the pre-service training of future development workers. In many countries this will require a major review of the present syllabuses and curricula of the agricultural schools, colleges and universities from which such workers are recruited. This is to ensure that any future graduates recruited by government or NGO development agencies will already have the requisite knowledge and mental attitude for promoting a participatory approach to better land husbandry prior to entering service, rather than as at present having to be retrained on entry.

Changing the material and way subjects are taught within the pre-service arena can be difficult as many academic institutions are jealous of their independence and resent interference from so called non-academics. Resolving this issue may require an official government backed national task force which can address the different concerns of the educational establishments and the relevant government ministries and NGO agencies.

Many of the procedures and practices associated with SARM and better land husbandry are based on practical field experience rather than the results of conventional scientific research. This can be a hindrance in getting the approach accepted in academic circles because of the lack of scientific proof. In this regard it is worth noting that as a result of the work of people like Robert Chambers the use of rapid rural appraisal (RRA) and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods have gained a degree of validity within social science institutions. However such methods have yet to be widely accepted amongst agricultural and natural science institutions. There is a need for closer cooperation between the field practitioners and the academics if the experiences of the former are to be validated and taught by the latter.

The following are some of the key issues that need to be considered when reviewing the current pre-service training on offer:

• Need for recognition in academic teaching circles that rapid rural appraisal (RRA) and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods are `scientifically' valid;
• Need for students to learn how to understand and work with the land users as much as how to scientifically study and classify the properties of the land itself;
• Need for students to learn more than just the agronomic requirements of different crops but also about the constraints and opportunities faced by farmers when making crop and land management decisions;
• Need for students to be put into practical field based learning situations where they have to talk with and learn from farmers about the rationale behind rural household decision making and its effect on influencing the nature of individual small-scale farming systems; and
• Need for more inter-disciplinary linkages between college/university departments, as well as intersectoral linkages with government and NGO development agencies, so that students can understand the bio-physical, socio-economic and institutional dimensions to sustainable land use.

²⁴ Most of the material for the remaining part of this chapter on training is taken from a paper (Douglas 1996b) prepared for the 9th Conference of the International Soil Conservation Organization (ISCO) August 26-30 1996, Bonn Germany.