Five Years After; the Impact of a Participatory Technology Development Programme as Perceived by Smallholder Farmers in Benin and Ghana

Sterk, B.; Kobina, A.C.; Gogan, A.C.; Sakyi-Dawson, O.; Kossou, D.K.

doi:10.1080/1389224x.2013.782819

Cited by 22 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Third, for obvious limitations of time, our field experiment focused on measuring the immediate effects of training, most notably, awareness, intrinsic motivation, integrated farming and planning SLM practices (Chapter 4). Consequently, measuring the long-term impact, which Van den Berg & Jiggins (2007) and Sterk et al (2013) call 'developmental impact', was not done. Therefore, the following recommendations are suggested for future research.…”

Section: Limitations Of the Study And Recommendations For Future Resementioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the scaling-up of sustainable land management in the Central highlands of Ethiopia

Teka¹

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Section: Limitations Of the Study And Recommendations For Future Resementioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the scaling-up of sustainable land management in the Central highlands of Ethiopia

Teka¹

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“…They aim ed th ro u g h com parative field experim ents to establish m ore effective p ath w ay s for innovation in sm allholder farm ing (w w w .cos-sis.org). H ow ever, a stu d y of CoS's im pact five years after its term ination (Sterk et al, 2013) show ed th a t farm ers had sto p p ed usin g the prac tices and technologies d ev eloped th ro u g h PTD w hen their utilizatio n d ep en d ed on conditions beyond their control. D uring CoS the p articip an ts began to experim ent w ith institu tio n al change, including, for exam ple, the a d a p ta tion of ten u re contracts so th at it becam e m ore attractive for tenants to engage in sustainable soil m anagem ent (Sai'du et al, 2007;A djei-N siah et al, 2007) and random checks for d octoring of the w eighing scales used by cocoa produce b uyers (D orm on et al, 2007).…”

Section: The Programmementioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural Research — From Recommendation Domains to Arenas for Interaction

Röling¹,

Jiggins²,

Hounkonnou³

et al. 2014

Outlook Agric

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A bstract: Agricultural research designs tend to be bounded by agroecological conditions, farming systems and other dimensions assumed to be homogeneous for the population of interest (that is, a recommendation domain or population for whom a technology or practice is expected to be relevant). Scaling is then a question of'rolling out' results across the domain. But what if technology adoption and institutional context explain the variance in the output of smallholders, and agricultural development is also a question of institutional innovation? What if a domain is seen as a system of interest among actors who have a stake in the system and as an arena for concerted action and institutional innovation? This paper reports on six years of action research that attempts to answer these questions. It compares experimental interventions and subsequent systemic changes within each of nine agroenterprise domains. The experience suggests that the research approach used can explain variance in smallholder output that, in present-day West Africa, is not explained by technology adoption.

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“…Moreover, when an additional PhD student from Wageningen University studied the longer-lasting effects and outcomes five years after the closure of the programme she found that a range of institutional constraints had blocked smallholders' further uptake of the beneficial socio-technologies and practices that had been developed and suppressed their own capacities for innovation (Sterk et al, 2013). Innovations developed through collaboration between local stakeholder groups and farmers under COS 1 survived the ending of programme support only when farmers themselves could control the conditions that enabled profitable use of the new technologies and practices.…”

Section: The Cos-sis Programmementioning

confidence: 99%

Innovation platforms and projects to support smallholder development - experiences from Sub-Saharan Africa

Jiggins

Hounkonnou²,

Sakyi-Dawson

et al. 2016

Cah. Agric.

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-Innovation as a policy goal, normative practice, and a conceptual framing of purposeful human activity, has received increasing attention. The question of what kinds of purposeful innovation might benefit smallholders in developing countries has been raised. This issue presents and analyses the work of Innovation Platforms (IPs) established by the COS-SIS (Convergence of Sciences-Strengthening Innovation Systems) programme in nine agro-enterprise domains in West Africa, drawing on Theory Guided Process Inquiry data recorded through 2011-end 2013. Six papers synthesise individual IP experiences, complemented by a cross-case analysis of external influences on the IPs and their responses, a reflection on how well the IPs in Mali dealt with local conflicts, and an analysis of how the work of the IPs in Ghana led to changes in university curricula and in the researching practices of three leading agricultural institutes. An analysis of thirteen case studies from Kenya, Benin, and South Africa supported by the JOLISAA (Joint learning in and about Innovation Systems in African Agriculture) programme, adds further insights. Five general lessons are drawn, expressed as propositions that can be further tested against others' experiences: (i) IPs can bring about significant socio-technical and institutional changes at a range of levels, and in a wide variety of agro-enterprise domains and contexts; (ii) the IPs are not isolated from nor independent of the networks of influence in which they are embedded; thus they cannot be treated as the sole causal agents of the changes accomplished; (iii) research that tracks the IPs' work and performance provides evidence that enables the members to learn from experience and adjust activities in the light of effects; (iv) there is no blueprint for what an IP is nor a recipe for the processes by which such changes are brought about; the form, activities, and changes co-evolve with whatever is happening in the wider context; (v) field-based diagnosis of opportunity, evidence-based information-sharing and experimental exploration of pathways of change establish the legitimacy and influence of IPs.

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Five Years After; the Impact of a Participatory Technology Development Programme as Perceived by Smallholder Farmers in Benin and Ghana

Cited by 22 publications

References 33 publications

Exploring the scaling-up of sustainable land management in the Central highlands of Ethiopia

Exploring the scaling-up of sustainable land management in the Central highlands of Ethiopia

Agricultural Research — From Recommendation Domains to Arenas for Interaction

Innovation platforms and projects to support smallholder development - experiences from Sub-Saharan Africa

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