Abstract
Donors, scientists and farmers all benefit when research and development projects have high impact. However, potential benefits are sometimes not realized. Our objective in this study is to determine why resource-poor farmers in Togo (declined to) adopt recommended practices that were promoted through a multi-organizational project on soil fertility management. We examine the processes and outcomes related to the adoption process. The project was undertaken in three villages in the Central Region of Togo in West Africa. The development and research processes that took place during the implementation of the project were critically analyzed using a conceptual framework that may be useful for improving the impact of future participatory projects. At the macro level, opportunities for innovation were not deliberately explored with participating farmers and other village members; consequently “pre-analytical choices” made during the planning phase resulted in practices that resource-poor farmers were, for a variety of reasons, unable or unwilling to adopt. From the outset, donors and scientists focused on soil fertility management, but failed to take into account the wider economic context within which soil fertility management took place. This was a major obstacle to the subsequent adoption of recommended management strategies. Scientists and donor partners measured the success of the Project in terms of crop productivity, but farmers’ choices were influenced by a complex mix of socio-economic, political and technical factors. We also illustrate the importance of selecting appropriate categories of farmers for a particular experiment. We conclude that for participatory research and development projects to be successful, it is not enough to develop technologies that “work” in a technical sense. In order to be scaled up and widely implemented, such technologies must also meet a variety of needs of resource-poor farmers and be acceptable from a socio-cultural point of view.
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Abbreviations
- CoS:
-
Convergence of Sciences
- ISFM:
-
Integrated Soil Fertility Management
- NGO:
-
Non Governmental Organization
- PCC:
-
Project Co-ordination Committee
- PTD:
-
Participatory Technology Development
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Suzanne Nederlof holds a PhD in Communication and Innovation Studies from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. After finishing her MSc. degree in Development Sociology at the same university she worked at a research project in Burkina Faso and at the International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDC) in Togo. Subsequently, she was based at the FAO regional office for Africa in Ghana, assigned to the Convergence of Sciences Program. She conducted the fieldwork for this article during that period. She completed her PhD research on agricultural research with a scholarship from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. She is currently employed as an advisor in rural innovation at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Constant Dangbégnon worked for several years (1990–1998) on Inter-University Cooperation (Benin, the Netherlands and Israel) in the area of indigenous knowledge and the soft side of natural resource management. This work constituted the basis of his PhD from Wageningen University in The Netherlands. He joined IFDC – Africa Division in Lomé (Togo) in June 1999 as a socio-economic extension specialist in the Input Accessibility Program (IAP).
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Nederlof, E.S., Dangbégnon, C. Lessons for farmer-oriented research: Experiences from a West African soil fertility management project. Agric Hum Values 24, 369–387 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-007-9066-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-007-9066-0