Participatory Learning and Action Research (PLAR)

In 2001, WARDA developed an approach for Integrated Crop Management (ICM) under inland-valley conditions. The objective of PLAR is to promote technological change through improving farmers capacity to exchange knowledge, experiences and practices. Application of ICM often increased yields by 1,000 kg/ha.

Groups of farmers learn to find adaptive responses to site-specific problems and make the best use of available resources, namely local knowledge and research-based understanding of underlying processes. Through weekly sessions with groups of farmers, a wide range of learning tools are used such as cropping calendars, maps, diagrams and field observations. These form the basis of 28 modules covering land preparation, transplanting, weed and pest management, but also post-harvest and marketing. These modules constitute the PLAR curriculum.

By 2006, PLAR has been introduced in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, Nigeria, The Gambia and Togo. Farmers now apply their learning to a wide range of other crops. Currently, new modules are being developed for mango and cashew, key crops grown on the fringes of inland valleys.

Apart from building capacity on PLAR, WARDA's Technology Transfer Unit conducts research on how the social position of PLAR participants and farmer trainers influences the diffusion of knowledge and technologies within and between communities. Insights will lead to policy recommendations to improve service delivey and farmer-to-farmer extension systems.

Video and Radio to scale up learning

Video is a powerful tool that can significantly increase the impact of good practices and research around the region. Besides being more cost-effective than farmer-to-farmer extension, video has the power to better explain underlying biological or physical processes if made with the end-users.

To ensure more farmers can benefit from PLAR, those modules with the highest local impacts and regional scaling-up potential will be turned into video products. Recently, WARDA developed two videos with women rice processors to spread proven post-harvest technologies.

Besides, in collaboration with CABI, UK, IRRI in the Philippines and the Rural Development Academy in Bangladesh, a set of four videos that aim at improving on-farm rice seed health forms the basis of an experiment on South-South exchange. While millions of farmers have changed their practices after having seen the videos in South Asia (where the videos were made with rural women), the videos are now available in more than 15 languages, making their way in the African continent.

Evaluating scaling-up processes and impacts are part of our research. Based on our experiences with these six rice videos, the Zooming-in Zooming-out approach was established that help extension service providers to create regionally relevant learning materials that are locally appropriate. The approach can be applied to any media form and has been recently published in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 4(2)2006, Pages 131–142. Click here to read the abstract.  Click here for full article. 

Please click on the following links to view the video:

• Cashing In with Parboiled Rice: http://www.warda.org/warda/video-parboiled.asp

• Improving Rice Quality : http://www.warda.org/warda/video-rice-quality.asp

• Spotted Seeds Means Diseased Seeds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NKVCNyPwuI

• Seed Sorting by Flotation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9Oy-ftKXoc

• Well Dried Seed is Good Seed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYTBSfFXF50

• Rice Seed Preservation Technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9nh99oaKLQ

To obtain copies of the videos please click here or contact:

Dr. Paul Van Mele
Africa Rice Center (WARDA)
01 BP 2031, Cotonou, Benin
tel: +229 21 35 01 88 ext. 332
fax: +229 21 35 05 56
email: p.vanmele@cgiar.org

Participatory Varietal Selection (PVS)

Using PVS, scientists and farmers together test a much wider range of potentially useful plant material than was being done before. It introduces farming communities to new varieties, gathers information on farmers’ preferences during three formal evaluations of the crop, and feeds this back into the breeding process.

PVS is at the core of the NERICA success story. The NERICA PVS program has now spread to about 20 African countries, involving thousands of farmers across Africa. Even in our recent breakthrough of NERICAs for lowlands, it has played a major role. With the success of PVS, subsequent seed production was identified as a major bottleneck in the dissemination of new varieties.

Community-based seed production system (CBSS)

To overcome the constraints of conventional seed systems, CBSS – a new seed multiplication scheme using farmers’ practices and local knowledge – was introduced as an alternative seed-supply mechanism for small-holder farmers.

This new scheme of seed production allows a rapid spread of NERICAs and other rice varieties into existing low-input, subsistence production systems in West and Central Africa. It reduces the time required for seed availability to farmers.