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Endogenous Farming Systems
A participatory approach, in which farmers are asked to identify the constraints to their production systems and suggest methods of improving outputs can have many benefits. Not least is the comprehensive understanding of the farmers as to possible solutions to their problems, taking account of the numerous peripheral constraints which are often not apparent to outsiders. Before external technology is suggested, it is therefore wise to ensure that endogenous solutions or suggestions are at least investigated. On a number of occasions, such an approach would have been particularly helpful
In Lesotho, conservation activities in the Soil and Water Conservation and Agroforestry Programme (SRS-013-LE), were hardly able to begin, partly because of a dispute over the approach to be adopted, and partly because of the difficulty of resolving the conflict between farmers’ immediate needs for food, and consequent "mining" of the natural resources, and the need for long term conservation measures. The programme therefore adopted the locally developed "machobane" conservation system, which had been developed over many years and had the benefit of requiring almost no purchased inputs and producing a high return for farmers from the first year. Once adopted, the result was a rapid uptake of the local system. In the Gambia, IFAD has supported a number of rice development projects. In the early 1980s, the Jahaly and Pacharr Smallholder Development Project (077-GA) was constructed which featured pumped control of both irrigation and drainage water in a completely empoldered area, and required intensive rice production methods to justify its high capital costs. This was followed by the Small Scale Water Control Project (SRS-021-GA) in 1989, which had a less intensive (and more sustainable) methods of water control, and finally by the ongoing Lowland Area Development Project (LADEP, …-GA) which is concerned with the development of traditional methods of tidal irrigation for rice production. In LADEP a participatory approach has been adopted with traditional growing methods. The technical progression over these three rice projects, based on learning from experience, has been to start with new and intensive methods of production and to revert to improving the traditional less intensive farming system.
- Methods for removing or reducing the constraints to production may already be known to farmers, but they are unable to implement them. Such solutions are likely to take account of local circumstances and to be readily acceptable to farmers. A participatory approach, involving joint problem solving, is one method of identifying such solutions.
- Intensified production practices may involve unacceptable changes to the farming systems, or may involve the maintenance of unsustainable infrastructure; building on endogenous systems is unlikely to encounter these problems, and should at least be thoroughly investigated in project design.
References:
1. (The) Gambia - Jahaly and Pacharr Smallholder Development Project, 077-GA R077GACE, Completion Evaluation, 1994.
2. (The) Gambia - Small-Scale Water Control Project, SRS-021-GA S021GAAE, Mid-Term Evaluation, 1995.
3. Lesotho - Soil and Water Conservation and Agroforestry Programme, SRS-013-LE S013LECE, Focused Evaluation, 1997.
