How do farmers get new information about farming and from whom? Ricardo Ramirez has developed a method that uses PRA (participatory rural appraisal) tools to find out the answer to this question from farmers themselves. His experiments with the technique in Ethiopia, the Philippines, and Peru - recently published by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development - have provided valuable insights into the way farmers get new information, insights that may point agricultural services in a new direction.

Information is a vital component of any farming system. It is transferred between researchers, farmers, input suppliers, extension agents, traders, non-governmental organisations, bankers and many others. Information is sought and supplied about prices, policies, technology, and market opportunities. Access to information is one factor that determines the opportunities and success of all these players. In field studies that probed the effectiveness of agricultural extension programmesin the Philippines, Ethiopia, and Peru, Ramirez developed a research approach that involves farmers in analysing the flows of information about farming in their communities. Researchers ask farmers to record a history of farming innovations, extending back as far as 30 years. The farmers identify key changes in farming practice, and the source of the change, whether it is an individual or an institution. With farmers checking its accuracy, researchers then draw a diagram that shows the flows of information between individuals

• awareness of the other actor's function
• relevance of the services provided
• timeliness of services
• accessibility to services
• communication media the information source uses
• control over the linkage, or do the demands of farmers affect services?

The most striking finding to emerge was that farmers gain more agricultural knowledge from other farmers than from the research and extension system. In the Philippines, it became apparent that extension officers were not able to provide the information farmers needed. Extension officers had poor access to researchers' information, and made few village visits. Farmers' main source of new seeds was other farmers. In Ethiopia, the research found that two bilateral aid programmes had been the main source of innovation for years. Although this knowledge was old news to farmers, it underlined the lack of impact of government programmes. The linkage diagrams revealed that most information flows are vertical, from regional to municipal to village level. Information often does not flow between actors at each of these levels, which leads to duplication of effort. Ramirez's research approach is intended to feed into policy measures to improve flows of information about agriculture. The findings offer two key pointer

• Agricultural extension workers need to become information brokers and facilitators, and this reorientation needs to be supported by relevant training and a supportive institutional environment.
• Research and extension activities need to be better integrated and co-ordinated to avoid duplication and to improve the relevance of the information exchanged.

Source(s):
Understanding Farmers' Communications Networks: Combining PRA with Agricultural Knowledge Systems Analysis. IIED Gatekeeper Series No. 66, Ricardo Ramirez (1997)

Funded by: IIED (1993-1996)

id21 Research Highlight: 1998-Apr-16

Further Information:
Ricardo Ramirez
The Sustainable Agriculture Programme
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
3 Endsleigh Street
London
WC1H 0DD
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 171 388 2117
Fax: +44 (0) 171 388 2826
Contact the contributor: sustag@iied.org

The Sustainable Agriculture Programme, (IIED), UK

Other related links:
Gatekeeper series, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), UK