These Guidelines cover the use of selected methods and tools of participatory diagnosis of constraints and opportunities (PDCO) at farm household and community levels in order to better understand farmers’ constraints for soil and plant nutrient management and promote their participation in finding solutions. The information that will be collected and analysed concerns the principal physical, socio-economic and technical features of land users’ communities and is useful for:

• identifying constraints and solutions of different socio-economic categories of farmers in various communities;

• providing elements for designing more effective extension methods and farmers’ field schools curricula and

• identifying needs for additional in-depth studies; and

• providing elements for identification and prioritization of research problems, giving emphasis to a demand-driven research agenda.

PDCO, using selected participatory tools, will:

• enhance awareness of improved soil and plant nutrient management techniques and practices, also learning from farmers’ knowledge and experience;

• facilitate trust and communication-building between insiders and outsiders; and

• contribute to the definition of shared development strategies tailored to site-specific problems and different socio-economic categories of farmers’ priorities.

The document is structured in two parts:
Part I, the main text, presents a sequence of four steps for conducting a PDCO exercise at community and farm household level. It also expands on key concepts such as the nature of constraints, participatory diagnosis and participatory planning.
Part II presents a wide range of tools covering the various aspects of conducting a PDCO exercise. The tools were chosen from a wide variety of toolkits and are based on complementarity and convergence among methods and approaches.

The Guidelines are intended for national soil and plant nutrition specialist teams and extension agents with the purpose to support PDCO using a set of selected methods and tools. The teams are invited to adapt the proposed methodology to national needs and conditions, by selecting the tools most appropriate for the country or by developing or adapting additional ones.

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