Teresa Gracia

Organizing experimenting farmers for participation in agricultural research and technology development

Experimenting farmers are an important resource in on-farm testing, adaptation, and dissemination of new technologies, especially in resource-poor, highly heterogeneous areas. In Southern Colombia, farmers’ research committees (Comites de Investigacion Agropecuaria Local or CIAL) were formed and used to mobilize local leadership among farmers to take responsibility for experimenting with technologies not known in their community. The CIALs were trained in participatory diagnosis and problem definition, planning and evaluation, and, ultimately, monitoring of adaptive technology testing and dissemination. It is possible to institutionalize this responsibility with farmers who often provide “hard-data” from farmer-managed adaptive research. Results show that current costs and coverage of CIAL approach compare favorably with some state or private sector systems, although the basis for comparison is very limited. A favorable cost structure is clearly related to the demonstrated effectiveness of paraprofessionals such as support-farmers, for scaling up and for achieving devolution.