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The Need for Another Research Paradigm
Seedling, Vol.11 (2), pp. 20-26
Michel P. Pimbert
International and national agricultural research is
entrenched in a culture of top-down and often insensitive approaches to
realities on the farm. This article by Dr. Michel Pimbert highlights the
mismatch between the transfer of technology model of agricultural research
and the needs and livelihood strategies of the poor. Michel is an
agricultural ecologist and has conducted much research on biological pest
control. He spent four years working at ICRISAT where his people-centred
approach to research clashed against the internal norms of Green
Revolution science. As Michel sees it, the professional challenge of the
1990s is to develop innovation systems and sustainable agricultures that
support decentralisation, diversity and democracy rather than
centralisation, uniformity and control.
The transfer of technology model (TOT) of agricultural
research is typical of both national and international agricultural
research systems. In the TOT model, all the key research decisions are
made by scientists who experiment on research stations or under
controlled, simplified conditions in farmers' fields. The resulting
agricultural technology, such as pest resistant varieties and
recommendations on fertilisation, is then handed over to the extension
services for transfer to farmers.
Industrial and green revolution agricultures have been
well served by this model of agricultural research. Reductionist research,
high input packages and top down extension have led to successes: in the
uniform and controlled conditions of industrial and green revolution
agriculture they have raised output per unit of land. The simplifying
tendencies of reductionist science have meshed well with the ecological
and social simplicity of standardised, specialised farming systems.
The burden of blinders
However, the TOT model of agricultural research has had
limited successes in the context of complex, risk-prone, diverse
environments where the majority of the world's rural people are dependent
on this type of traditional agriculture which is mainly rainfed, on
undulating lands and found in mountains, hills, wetlands and the semi-arid
and people live today. The physical and economic conditions on research
stations have, after all, been very different to those of resource poor
environments.
Some 1.4 billion humid tropics. For many agricultural
technologies developed within the TOT framework, failure rates have been
and remain high: the research priorities often turn out to be wrong, the
packages are rejected, the technologies do not fit, are non-sustainable or
inequitable because of an emphasis on purchased inputs in resource-poor
contexts. Examples include: pest management research based on
scientists' perceptions of pest problems on research stations rather than
on data derived from reliable pest surveys and farmers' rankings of pests
in order of importance; or farmers' non adoption of improved high
yielding, pest resistant crop varieties on account of their poor taste or
cooking qualities.
Agricultural scientists tend to perceive farming systems
through the narrow window of their professional discipline. Their training
has taught them to look at the aspect of farming systems on which they
specialise. This is usually their main focus of attention when visiting a
farm. However, there are many internal linkages that matter in farming
systems, particularly in the complex farming systems that resource-poor
farmers often want, but which professional disciplines neglect. For
example, the link between crops and livestock is often described in terms
of "left-overs", as "crop residues". But in many
farming systems, the stover, used as fodder, is a vital part of the crop
and of the farming system.
This disciplinary specialisation often hides from
professional view the risk minimising strategies built into traditional
farming systems. Resource poor farmers often try to reduce risk by
complicating and diversifying their farms and household enterprises.
Furthermore, disciplinary specialists tend to adopt one
or two single criteria to measure performance, e.g. yield, pest
resistance. But farmers as managers of complex, risk-prone systems have
many different criteria which they weigh up and combine in the choice of
crop varieties or in the choice of farm or watershed management
activities. When assessing improved pigeon pea varieties in India, women
farmers had some ten different criteria for assessing varieties that had
been advanced by ICRISAT scientists on the basis of two criteria: yields
and pest resistance alone. This raises the central question: whose
knowledge counts? Whose priorities and preferences count? Those of the
scientist or those of the farmer?
Much of the R&D programs on sustainable agriculture
in the CGIAR and the NARS are attempts at systemic adjustments to the
sustainability crisis rather than approaches that hinge on fundamental
structural change. Agricultural science still operates on a narrow
intellectual base emphasising single inputs for each purpose and ignoring
the broader implications of recommended technologies. Research is still
dominated by the search for marketable input commodities rather than by
ecological and social knowledge geared to reducing the need for inputs.
The professional challenge for the 1990s
The professional challenge of both international and
national public agricultural research is to: acknowledge the mismatch
between the TOT model of agricultural research and the priorities and
needs of the poorest sections of rural society; and recognise and build on
the potential of complex, diverse and risk prone farming to meet the twin
goals of sustainability and livelihood security.
In practice this means that outside professionals
(scientists, donors, development planners, policy makers...) should reject
the arrogant dismissal of non-scientific or people's knowledge without
adopting the naïve, uncritical, view that grassroot organisations and
farmers always know best. There is now considerable evidence that
experimentation is the norm rather than the exception among rural
communities, particularly — but not exclusively — in developing
countries. However, it is still heresy to many of today's agricultural
scientists and economists to suggest that farmers and grassroot
organisations have much to say in the process of technology generation,
diffusion and adaptation. Facing the professional challenge also means
that rural people should meet scientists on terms of equality. Outside
professionals have to recognise that ordinary people have something to
teach them and can become involved in key decisions relating to R&D
priorities (from plant and animal breeding to the overall design of
diverse farming systems and watershed management schemes).
The crisis of the TOT model has already led some
agricultural scientists to explore new approaches that hinge on farmer
participation. These Farmer First approaches reverse parts of the TOT
model. Rather than blame farmers' ignorance or farm level constraints for
the non-adoption of agricultural technology, a reversal of explanation
points to deficiencies in the technology and the very processes that
generated it. A reversal of learning has researchers and extension workers
learning with and from farmers and rural people. Roles and locations are
also reversed, with farmers and farms central instead of research
stations, laboratories, scientists and abstract theories. Analysis, choice
and experimentation are conducted by and with farmers themselves, with
researchers and extensionists in a facilitating and support role.
To combine effectively the theoretical insights and
technical power of western science with indigenous knowledge, both Farmer
First and TOT approaches are needed in agricultural research seeking
sustainable agricultures. This more inclusive research paradigm is still
largely in its formative stages. It recognises that both scientists and
farmers have limitations and strengths, and so the challenge is to forge
active complementarities between these social actors and fully express
their comparative advantages in generating sustainable agricultures.
Worldwide, there already exist examples of participatory
research in which farmers and rural people play a greater role in shaping
the directions taken by science and technology. The gene bank of Ethiopia
involves farming communities in the conservation of genetic diversity.
On-farm landrace conservation focuses on major food crops like sorghum,
chickpea, teff, field peas and corn. The complementary knowledge and
skills of scientists and farmers ensure that germplasm is conserved in a
more dynamic and safer way than is the case in most other gene banks of
the world. In Zambia, Colombia and India, participatory plant breeding and
germplasm evaluation efforts that involve farmers, non governmental
organisations and scientists have consistently better served the needs of
farmers and rural people in complex, diverse and risk prone environments
than conventional top down approaches.
A rich repertoire of participatory methods is
increasingly allowing outside professionals to learn with, by and from
rural people and to create a working relationship in which people's
priorities and values become more fully expressed in projects aimed at
conserving and using agricultural biodiversity and other natural
resources. Appropriate behaviour and attitudes allow outsiders to
establish rapport, convene, catalyse, facilitate, adapt, "hand over
the stick", watch, listen, learn and respect. Meanwhile, rural
peoples' sense of empowerment grows as they map, model, diagram,
interview, quantify, rank and score, inform and explain, show, discuss and
analyse, plan, present and share their knowledge and experience with
others.
In these examples, scientists have clear advantages at
two levels of organisation. At the micro level: accurate identification
techniques for causal agents of diseases; taxonomic skills needed to
identify pests and natural enemies (for biological control);
instrumentation and expertise needed to understand cellular, physiological
and behavioural processes. At the macro level: satellite remote sensing to
spot biotic stresses; computer assisted geographic information systems and
worldwide electronic communication networks and data banks. But the
collective knowledge that farmers and rural people have of their
watersheds and agroecosystems gives them distinctive advantages at the
mesolevel — where the agricultural technologies are ultimately aimed
at. This is, after all, the social and ecological context in which farmers
experiment, adapt and innovate.
Farmers Rights: democratising research
The above are examples in which scientists,
extensionists and farmers are more equal partners in agricultural research
and development. To date, however, these initiatives remain marginal
within the CGIAR and the NARS. Donor agencies as well as top and middle
level managers of agriculture research institutes clearly have a role to
play in encouraging the spread of participatory research model that seek
to empower rural communities in the definition and implementation of their
own development goals. Their challenge is to stimulate the creation of:
1. New learning environments for professionals and rural
people to develop capacities. An interactive learning environment
encourages participatory attitudes, commitment, and contributes to jointly
negotiated courses of action.
2. New institutional environments. Institutional support
is essential for participatory innovations to spread between and within
institutions, and for innovators to gain the confidence and freedom to act
and share.
Without appropriate incentives and reward systems it is
unlikely that participatory approaches that support local innovation and
enhance local capacities will spread into mainstream agricultural R&D.
The policies of donor agencies and institute managers will largely
determine whether the CGIAR system promotes participatory approaches and
methods as core professional activities, or whether these will remain
isolated and marginalised within the IARCs. This a key challenge since the
CGIAR has a professional influence out of all proportion to its size and
budget. Through their training of national scientists and their prestige,
the IARCs spread and reinforce the dominant concepts, values, methods and
behaviour of agricultural science.
The very concept of Farmer's Rights offers a unique
opportunity to officially reestablish farming communities as the key
players in the creation, the conservation and the sustainable use of
genetic diversity (and, more generally, of agricultural biodiversity).
Farmers Rights has come to describe the whole spectrum of requirements
that enable farmers to fully benefit from that part of biodiversity that
nurtures people. For example, in order for plant genetic materials to be a
resource, farmers must have control over their own biomaterials and have
access to the widest possible pool of genetic material. Farmers have a
right to retain their own knowledge about genetic resources and to access
all the information about their material that is available elsewhere.
Also, in order for farmers to develop their resource, they need funds.
Farmers must also be free to develop their own technologies and to take
advantage of other technologies they find useful. Lastly, recognising that
germplasm information, funds and technologies function within farming
systems, cultural systems and also marketing systems, among others, the
concept includes their right to choose and retain those systems that best
meet their needs.
In order to implement Farmers Rights, the key challenges
for scientists are to act as searchers and suppliers of germplasm as well
as removers of legal and administrative obstacles to the spread of
farmers' innovations. It calls for a radical restructuring of national
agricultural research systems to include farmers and grassroot
organisations as equal partners in innovation and give them more control
over research priorities.
The decentralised R&D approach described above is
uniquely suited for generating diverse and knowledge rich sustainable
agricultures. Moreover, its high level of participation also satisfies the
equity criterion: it allows farmers to make their own demands on their
national research organisations and introduces some measure of
accountability and democratic control over agricultural research and
extension. However, whilst these approaches support diversity,
decentralisation and democracy, they do not, in and by themselves,
guarantee public participation in science and the design of technologies.
Democratising research obviously implies broader reforms within the
scientific community itself and the social forces that largely determine
today's public research agenda.
For example, the social context of public plant and
animal breeding work is such that the directions and uses of publicly
funded research are increasingly specified by those who hold power in the
food system. Official conservation programs (germplasm collections, gene
bank policy, use of genetic materials...) often reflect and reinforce
these "commercial imperatives". The biotechnology revolution
planned by and for corporate capital is transforming and further
subordinating much of public research to its own ends. Universities and
public research institutes, suffering funding cuts, increasingly do work
contracted by the private sector — finding that they have to keep
their research results secret while the corporations apply for patents on
products partly or entirely developed with tax payers money. This greatly
restricts the free flow of scientific information, to the detriment of
learning and innovation.
In this disturbing context, democratising research first
means increasing public funding for research and, at the same time,
restructuring agricultural R&D to allow for people's participation at
all levels. Top down transfer of technology approaches need to be replaced
by innovation systems that broaden the circle of social control over
decisions on how biological resources are managed and used — and for
whom. Budgetary allocations should clearly reflect and reinforce the goals
of sustainable agricultural development.
Appropriate changes in the training and reward systems
of scientists and extension staff are required to encourage more
equitable, participatory research modes in collecting, conserving, genetic
and species diversity and in designing agroecosystems that rely more on
nature's diversity and resilience than on capital intensive "solutions".
Farm tools, machines and food processing technology should be re-designed
to cope with, and encourage, increasing biodiversity in agriculture.
Public participation (by farmers, grassroot conservation groups and other
social formations) is also essential in the various bodies (government,
professional boardrooms) responsible for key decisions on overall national
research priorities and R&D funding. This is probably the most
important challenge facing agricultural research in the next decade.
Sources:
Chambers, R., Challenging the professions: Frontiers for
rural development, Intermediate Technology Publications, London, 1993.
MacRae, R.J. et al., "Agricultural science and
sustainable agriculture: a review of existing scientific barriers to
sustainable food production and potential solutions", in Biological
Agriculture and Horticulture, 6:173-219, 1989.
Pimbert, M.P., Designing integrated pest management
for sustainable and productive futures, International Institute for
Environment and Development, Gatekeepers Series Nº 29, Sussex, 1992.
Richards, P., "Farmers also experiment; a neglected
intellectual resource in African science", Discovery and
Innovation, 1(1):19-25.
Scoones, I., and Thompson, J., Beyond farmer first,
Intermediate Technology Publications, London, 1994.
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