October 2001
by Chris Garforth,
International and Rural Development Department
The University of Reading, The United Kingdom
c.j.garforth@reading.ac.uk
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The Ministry of Agriculture of the Government of Eritrea, with support from FAO and DANIDA, carried out a study of the agricultural knowledge and information system (AKIS) in a sub-zoba (an administrative area similar in extent to a District in other countries in the region). The purpose of the study was to contribute to the development of demand-led extension and advisory services in Eritrea, through a better understanding of the information needs of farmers and of the sources and channels through which they access information. The specific objectives were to:
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There were two reasons for the emphasis on methodology (objective (a)). First, there are many sets of tools and methods for analysing AKIS. Some of these require a lot of time and resources to apply fully. We wanted to identify a minimum set of methods that could be applied by extension staff after a brief training or briefing and which would generate enough understanding of the AKIS to identify specific and realistic options for improvement. Second, by documenting methods and developing experience in using them among a team of extension staff, a resource would be created which could be used to facilitate similar studies in other parts of the country.
Achieving these objectives required a participatory approach, both in the methods used in the study and in the process of interpretation of the data. The methods involved the active participation of community members in articulating an analysis of the AKIS; and after the study team had compiled the information, it was presented at a workshop for community members and other stakeholders for discussion and validation. The involvement of extension staff from the zoba and sub-zoba throughout all stages of the study was an important feature. They succeeded in starting a dialogue with farmers which can now be developed into the planning of training and extension activities which will address the constraints and opportunities which farmers face.
The study team decided it was necessary to compile five main categories of information:
Several sources were consulted to identify appropriate participatory methods that would generate the required information and at the same time initiate a dialogue between the study team and farmers. The methods used for the study were:
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The use of a range of different methods was deliberate, quite apart from the fact that different methods are suitable for different kinds of information. It would encourage wider participation within the community, give team members experience of working with different methods and provide different perspectives on the same topic. This in turn would increase confidence in the findings. Methods (ii), (iii), (iv) and (v) involve the visual representation of information and insights provided by community members. This facilitates communication between research teams and farmers: the description and analysis can be seen as they develop from the discussion, allowing participants to add to, correct or offer alternative interpretations of the information. Guidelines for using each of the methods were prepared: they were used in the two-day training workshop for the research team before the study began. Two contrasting villages within the sub-zoba were selected for the study, both within half an hour journey by vehicle from Hagaz town: Glass, which is on the main road between Hagaz and the zoba headquarters at Keren, and Ashera which is ten kilometres from Hagaz along a gravel road.
The training workshop took place in a school in the town of Hagaz. The objectives were for the study team to develop skills in using the selected methods, compile information on extension activities within the sub-zoba, draw up a questionnaire and interview guide for the individual interviews with farmers and the semi-structured interviews with groups of informants, and plan a work programme for carrying out the study. Team members practised using each of the methods and discussed how to implement them in the field.
The fieldwork for the study took three days, with half the team working in each village. The participatory methods were used with different groups of farmers and other informants. Local leaders helped ensure that a good cross-section of residents of the villages took part - men and women, full-time and part-time farmers, resource rich and resource poor. After the fieldwork, the team spent two days in a workshop compiling, analysing and interpreting the data. Tigrinya and English language versions of the charts and diagrams produced during the field study were prepared. Questionnaire data were transcribed to a matrix and later to an Excel spreadsheet for analysis.
The findings were presented to a feedback seminar in Hagaz attended by 32 local stakeholders. After the seminar, the Tigrinya charts and diagrams were left with the administrators of the two villages, and the English versions stayed with the Agricultural Office in Hagaz for reference during planning of future extension activities.
The semi-structured interviews in the two villages revealed some interesting contrasts. The study in Ashera was carried out in Shaftuk, one of the settlements within Ashera kebabi. The settlement was founded around 115 years ago and has about one thousand inhabitants in 250 households. Women head one fifth of households. Inhabitants are from the Bilen ethnic group and most are Catholics. The village population is growing: more than half the population is under 18 years old. Children look after animals. Many young people are at the moment in military service.
Agriculture in Ashera is based on rainfed crop production and livestock keeping. Farming incomes are low and average cultivated area per household is about one hectare. Low and unreliable rainfall in recent years has contributed to agriculture being seen as an unsatisfactory basis for livelihoods. Yields are low: contributing factors are low rainfall, falling water table and poor quality seeds. Local millet varieties are susceptible to disease and the shortage of rain means the seeds are small. Villagers blame the falling water table on deforestation, pointing to the loss of tree cover from the nearby hillsides which also contributes to the silting of the river and encroachment of sand onto fields when it rains. At the same time, sale of firewood is a significant contribution to livelihoods in the village – witnessed by the daily movement of camels laden with firewood from the sub-zoba to Keren, and the large firewood depot by the main road in Hagaz itself.
Households acquire land through patrilineal inheritance, which is typical in Bilen and Tigray communities. They can also obtain additional farmland through a variety of tenancy arrangements, usually based on a crop-sharing agreement rather than cash rents. Most households rely on their family labour for farming: those who can afford to, and others occasionally when they are sick, also hire labour from within the village. There are also traditional labour co-operation arrangements, which are particularly used by female heads of households.
In Glass, one in three households are headed by women, nearly all of whom are widows. Although the recorded population is increasing, the de facto population is falling and the average age is increasing as young people leave the village to study, look for wage employment elsewhere or go to national service.
Households in the village make their living entirely from agriculture. Productivity, however, is declining. Soil fertility and rainfall are both decreasing. Livestock have to range much further in search of grazing than previously. This contributes to the reduction in availability of manure (also exacerbated by the use of cow dung for cooking), which in turn reinforces the loss of soil fertility. Soil erosion is a problem, with gullies forming on farmland as well as on grazing areas. As in Ashera, informants pointed to deforestation of the surrounding hillsides as a major factor. They also reported that rains are now limited to around two months per year, compared with five months in earlier times.
Key informants identified two socio-economic categories of household in the village. Rich households are typically those with more than 20 livestock, some land under irrigated horticulture (mainly onions), and/or remittances from family members living abroad. Poor households have small, infertile crop fields, no draught power and work as hired labourers for onion growers. Most households, however, have a mix of agricultural enterprises: either cereals and livestock, or cereals, horticulture and livestock. A few have no livestock and grow only rainfed millet and sorghum.
As in Ashera, land is inherited from father to son. Renting and share cropping are other ways of obtaining land for farming. Traditional gender divisions of labour in farming are breaking down to some extent, with a few women now involved in ploughing, sowing and threshing. This is due to shortages of family labour, particularly among poorer households. Labour shortage has been made worse by the recent military tension between Eritrea and Ethiopia, which led to the repatriation of Ethiopian labourers from the area and to the call up to military service of large numbers of men. Families who can afford to do so will hire labour to help with the main cereal operations of weeding and harvesting; onion producers invariably hire labour from the surrounding villages. Because of the labour shortage, it has become common for school students to work as hired labourers during weekends.
In the past, households coped with drought and other times of food shortage by collecting the fruits and leaves of wild plants. They would keep some seed in reserve so that if a crop failed they would still have seed to sow in the following season. Nowadays, they are more likely to sell goats or borrow money from relatives in order to buy food and seed.
In Glass, two timelines were generated with villagers: one for onions, and one for cereal crops. The onion timeline identified several distinct developments:
Informants identified information and knowledge support needed by onion producers. These include information on market prices, without which they are in a weak position to negotiate selling prices with the traders who come to the village to buy their onions; and practical training on irrigation, planting times and plant protection. Referring to the farmer training that had been provided by the Hagaz Agro-Technical School in the year 2000, they mentioned that participants who could not write down what they were learning were unable to remember the details of everything they were told. The discussion in Glass highlighted that an important role for the AKIS is to enable farmers to access information and knowledge that will help solve their production and marketing problems. It is a system for accessing information, much more than a system for telling farmers what agricultural professionals think they need to know or should be doing. This insight matches the trend in thinking away from top-down extension systems which push "innovations" at farmers, towards advisory services which respond to farmers’ needs and demands.
The Ashera timeline showed that crop production began in about 1930 with sorghum and pearl millet introduced from farmers in Keren. Before that, villagers had been cattle keepers since the settlement was established in the first decade of the twentieth century. Since then, there have been no changes of sorghum variety, but new varieties of pearl millet have been introduced. The team was again told that there was dense forest in the area until the 1940s. The gradual decline since then accelerated sharply after 1988 because of drought. The main problem facing crop farmers is the lack of water: shortage of rain and no opportunity for irrigation. For livestock keepers, a shortage of feed and high prices for those wanting to buy new animals were the key problems (camel prices have risen tenfold since 1997).
The Ashera timeline shows the importance of farmer-to-farmer exchange of information in the development of local farming systems but also the key role played by external organisations. The Italians introduced rinderpest vaccination and were followed by the British who did not continue with it; religious organisations brought in new species or breeds of animals; the Ministry of Agriculture have introduced crop varieties and poultry in more recent times. Informants offered indicators of the decline in both crop and livestock production since the mid-1980s: families eat oil with their porridge instead of butter, and in the late 1980s began to store grain in the sacks in which food aid had been distributed because the quantities no longer warranted use of the traditional woven storage baskets.
The transect walk in Ashera identified three, and the walk in Glass four, land use zones. The information gained during the walks was summarised in two matrices. In Ashera, the integrated nature of local rainfed farming systems was readily apparent. Livestock graze on stover after harvest in zone 1 (flat cropland) and provide in situ manuring. This interdependence is under pressure, as some households collect dung to supplement fuelwood as the latter becomes scarce – partly because it is taken to Hagaz and Keren for sale. Free access for all livestock also adds to the difficulties of protecting fields from seasonal flooding, and therefore from covering with infertile sand, by the river. Soil in this zone, which is low lying and with only a very light slope, is regarded as better than in the undulating farmland of zone 2 (sloping cropland). However it is being increasingly damaged by the river. Soil bunds were built in both zones 1 and 2 some five years previously, under a Ministry of Agriculture scheme which paid local people 10 nakfa for every six metres constructed. These are now in need of maintenance but farmers are unwilling to meet the cost (or opportunity cost of their and their families’ labour) to undertake the work. Natural (post-harvest) vegetation in zone 1 is dominated by Gindae ("Adam’s Fruit"), regarded by farmers as an indicator of poor soil. During the season, problems are mainly those of low rainfall and crop pests and diseases. The multi-purpose dom tree (palm) is increasingly scarce because of over-use and browsing by livestock. Sorghum, millet and groundnuts are the main crops in zone 1.
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In zone 2, some haricot beans are grown among the grains, but they are not a staple food and so it is not practical to grow them on a large scale either as an intercrop or in rotation with grains. In parts of zone 2, traditional bunds built from rocks and cut thorn bushes are visible along the course of the river and across gullies caused by erosion. Soil here is regarded as inferior to that in zone 1: low in nutrients and subject to run-off erosion. Cut thorn bushes and live barriers are used to fence the track that leads through zone 2 to the hand-dug well in zone 3 (communally grazed hillsides) which provides a perennial supply of water for livestock and people.
It was clear in Ashera that some of the problems highlighted during the walk could only be tackled by collective action, possibly with financial and/or technical assistance from outside the community. There is a strong feeling that the river should be diverted to protect fields in zone 1 from further damage. Any changes to the rules and practices governing livestock access to farmland require collective decisions – it is not something that an individual farmer can do anything about. On the other hand, there are some problems which could be amenable to knowledge-based interventions at the level of individual farmers, for example appropriate action on pest management.
Glass farmers also experienced problems with the seasonal river which flows through the village and had several suggestions for improving the situation. Informants on the walk were also able to identify problems and opportunities relating to horticultural enterprises and land use. Some of these related to lack of knowledge on how to address production problems (such as crop protection), others to lack of information on which to base marketing decisions. Other opportunities would require institution building support, such as facilitating the establishment of savings and loan groups; others as in Ashera could only be contemplated through collective decision and action at a community level (such as re-establishing trees and grass on the hillsides of zone 4, and water management and harvesting). Overall, the transect walks showed that some problems were shared by the two villages, although the most appropriate solutions are not necessarily the same in each case. Other problems and opportunities are village specific and, within a village, zone specific. This highlights the need for planning of extension and advisory services to take account both of problems which are common across the sub-zoba, and of the specific constraints which affect farming livelihoods in each community. It was also clear that different components of the AKIS can each contribute in different ways to addressing the problems and opportunities identified by farmers.
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A process of brainstorming and ranking identified a core problem in each village around which a problem tree was created. In Ashera, this was poor soil fertility. In Glass, it was low yields. Constructing the problem tree in Ashera took two and quarter hours. The team and the six participants sat in a circle. One member of the team wrote the core problem, in Tigrinya, on a piece of card and placed it on the ground in the middle of the circle. She proceeded to write down each cause as it was mentioned on a piece of yellow card, and each effect or consequence of the core problem on a piece of blue card. The participants discussed where the pieces of card should be placed in relation to the core problem and to each other. When the Ashera problem tree was complete, team members drew it onto a piece of paper and then collected the pieces of card so that the tree could be recreated for discussion and presentation later.
In the Glass problem tree, major causes of low yields were identified as lack of labour and capital, low soil fertility, and crop diseases. Participants discussed ways in which elements in the AKIS could help them address these causes: suggestions included advice on savings and credit, and training on pest and disease management and on soil fertility improvement. There was also a call for more mechanisation of crop production, in view of the shortage of labour. Farmers thought conservation structures and a clear land use plan for the village were desirable.
The problem tree activity raised two important points about the use of this method:
Farmers' access to and use of information channels was explored in two ways: through participatory information mapping and linkage diagrams, and through individual questionnaires with a quota sample of farmers from different socio-economic categories. The information maps and linkage diagrams highlighted key differences between the two villages. In Ashera, farmers seem dependent on government institutions and channels for information and knowledge from outside the community. Farmers in Glass have access to a much larger set of sources. The cost of accessing information is also very different. A round trip between Ashera and Hagaz costs five nakfa, apart from the time involved in waiting for one of the infrequent vehicles that come through the village. This compares with six nakfa to travel from Hagaz to Keren and back, which is three times the distance; and nine nakfa from Keren to Asmara and back.
When farmers in Ashera need to contact the Ministry of Agriculture office in Hagaz, they usually do it through the village administrator. However, they do not always get a response because the staff lack transport. Participants in the information mapping activity (three women and four men) spoke of their contact with the Ministry mainly in terms of services they received, particularly veterinary services and tractor ploughing under the Integrate Farming Scheme. They have received advice on how much fertiliser to use per hectare for grain crops, but do not feel they have enough knowledge to optimise their use of fertilisers. Training has also been given on plant protection (to men) and on poultry (to women), and the sub-zoba animal health expert has given a one day training on animal husbandry. Farmers do not get any agricultural advice or information over the radio, and very little through the local contact farmer who, they suggest, has no incentive to provide it. Farmer-to-farmer exchange of information is important to them: it is easy to access and communication is continuous. However, it may not always be accurate. The overall impression gained in Ashera is that the Ministry is regarded as a highly credible source of information and advice, but is very difficult to access directly. Apart from farmer-to-farmer communication, most flows of information were described as "low frequency". The exception was veterinary information and service which they said is available throughout the year. This perhaps reflects their willingness to pay the cost of travel or sending someone to the Hagaz veterinary clinic if their animals are sick.
In Glass, farmers have access to a wider range of formal organisations. In addition, they can get information and advice from local and more distant markets, and from staff at the church and school in the village. Farmers are not necessarily well informed about linkages among the other actors in the AKIS. For example, Ashera informants thought that the Red Cross in Keren was somehow involved in the flow of information relating to food and agriculture, but were not clear how it linked to other organisations. These linkage diagrams are not a complete and accurate representation of the AKIS: they represent the direct sources and channels with which farmers exchange information, and farmers’ perceptions of how these sources are linked to others.
In Glass, informants identified 23 separate sources and channels of information with which farmers in the village have direct contact. In their linkage diagram, they did not include sources with which they did not themselves have direct contact, apart from those within the Ministry of Agriculture and the local administration. This may simply be because their diagram was already full with their direct links, or because they were not aware of or interested in indirect links. Three features of this diagram are worth noting:
However, findings from other methods indicate that farmers in Glass still feel they need more information and advice: availability of and access to channels does not guarantee that all information needs will be adequately met.
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The questionnaires were completed, through interviews with individual farmers, on the final day of the fieldwork. Ten interviews were done in each village. The two village administrators identified households which fell into different socio-economic categories. If the teams had had more time, this could have been done more systematically through, for example, a process of wealth or well-being ranking. Four categories were identified: "rich", "medium", "poor" and "needy". In Ashera, no households fell into the "rich" category; while in Glass no households were "needy". The two page questionnaire took less than 30 minutes to complete. The sample was small and cannot be said to be representative in a statistical sense. However the data do corroborate information coming from the participatory methods and give some pointers towards areas in which the AKIS could be improved.
Farmers’ decisions and their use of information can only be understood in the context of their resource base and the place that farming occupies in their livelihood strategies. Households who rely on their farm for most of their food supplies but earn cash income in other activities are likely to need different information and make different decisions from those whose farm represents their main source of cash as well as food. Very poor households with small areas of rain-fed land, few livestock and no regular source of cash income face different sets of constraints and opportunities from those who are better endowed in terms of natural and financial resources. There are considerable differences between the two villages in the importance of farming in their livelihoods (Tables 1 and 2). Only two Ashera respondents said that their farm is one of their main sources of income, compared to all ten Glass respondents (even the six who do not have irrigated horticulture enterprises). For the most needy category of households, remittances from relatives overseas or elsewhere in the country represented the main source of cash; and they relied on purchases rather than their own farm for food. These are all female headed households, whose main prospect of developing agricultural enterprises seems to be backyard poultry.
In response to an open question on what are their main sources of advice and information on farming, six sources were mentioned: the MOA office in Hagaz, local administration, other farmers, NGOs/church, other zobas, and the political party. Responses varied between socio-economic categories of respondent and between villages (Table 3). These confirm the overall picture from the information mapping that Glass farmers have access to and use a wider range of information sources than those in Ashera. In both villages, however, the Ministry of Agriculture is the source cited most frequently. Notably absent are the mass media and farmers' organisations or groups. When asked where they would get information or advice on six specific farming matters, two additional sources were mentioned (Table 4): traders and a private vet. In Ashera, out of a possible total of 60 responses (six questions and ten respondents), 41 responses were given, of which 28 were the Ministry of Agriculture. The only other sources mentioned in Ashera were the local administration, other farmers and traders (for information on market prices of agricultural products). In Glass, respondents were much more likely to mention two or even three sources for each category of information or advice, giving 83 responses in total: 37 of these were the Ministry of Agriculture. Going to other farmers for advice seems more acceptable in Glass, with 25 responses compared to 3 in Ashera.
In order to gain a fuller picture of the use people make of the various information sources identified earlier in the study, the questionnaire moved from open-ended to closed questions. For each of eighteen different sources, respondents were asked how frequently (if at all) they get information about farming from the source, how easy it is to access or contact it and how reliable and useful they find the information they get from it. The responses highlight again the predominance of the Ministry of Agriculture, local administration and other farmers as primary sources and channels of information, together with relatives (Table 5). They also confirm that farmers in Glass have access to and use more sources than those in Ashera. This represents a dilemma for the public sector elements of the AKIS. It is easier, in terms of resource requirements, for them to service the needs of farmers in Glass because of its location; but these are the farmers who have access to alternative information sources while those in Ashera are more dependent on the Ministry but more expensive to reach. Poorer households and women are less likely to get agricultural information from the radio. This may indicate radio ownership is skewed but several respondents also pointed out that there is no regular agricultural programming on the radio so it is difficult to use it systematically as an information source. A similar bias in responses towards the better-off and men is seen in respect of the political party (EPDJ). Several of the other sources mentioned are not primarily involved in agriculture-related activities: the fact that farmers recognise that they get information relevant to their farming from such sources suggests that they have considerable potential for improving the overall flow of information within the AKIS. The sub-zoba and zoba agricultural offices could consider how they might use such sources – for example by providing information to church organisations and local schools.
The data on frequency, ease of access and reliability (Table 6), show three points clearly:
These points suggest AKIS actors could look for ways of increasing the reliability of information flowing within the social system, and of providing education and incentives to traders to improve the quality and credibility of the information they give to farmers.
A final question asked whether there was any particular information, advice or training which would help respondents maintain or improve their farms. All twenty replied positively, mentioning specific needs (Table 7). The topics show a definite gender split, presumably reflecting the different opportunities perceived by men and by women. Women mentioned poultry and dairy goat management while men’s topics were more related to crop production and natural resource management.
The main findings of the study were:
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These findings, and the discussions with stakeholders during the feedback seminar in Hagaz, suggest several points of intervention within the AKIS which could be taken up at zoba and sub-zoba level. These include:
In conclusion, the AKIS study in Hagaz achieved its main objectives. It developed and tested a methodology for analysing local knowledge and information systems in a participatory manner and demonstrated that extension staff can apply the methodology competently. It articulated local information and knowledge needs and built up a rich picture of farmers’ access to and use of information sources. Through discussion with participants at all stages of the study, specific points of intervention were identified and a commitment to taking forward the study conclusions into action to improve the functioning of the AKIS was established.
However, there were limitations to the study which should be recognised. The analysis of the AKIS that emerged from the study is deliberately presented from the farmers’ point of view. The team did not work its way "up" the system to develop a broader analysis of the functioning of the AKIS. Further discussions and information gathering would be needed to identify opportunities and constraints within the AKIS at national level. These would include discussions within the public sector research, education and advisory service organisations, and with individuals and organisations in the commercial sector which interact with farmers in market transactions of various kinds.
The limited time available to the team in the field restricted the amount of information gathering and discussion with farmers. Although every effort was made to include a wide cross-section of people in the various activities, and to validate information through using different methods and through the feedback seminar in Hagaz, we cannot be sure that the findings are completely representative of the situation and perceptions of all categories of farmers in the two villages. Nor can we say that these two villages are fully representative of the villages within Hagaz sub-zoba. Indeed, the differences between and within the two villages point to the need to be responsive to specific local problems and opportunities.
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