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This will entail assessing, in quantifiable terms, trends in forest conditions and management, as well as the impacts on local livelihoods. Within the FUG, the presence of an external facilitator can mitigate against the influence of FUG political hierarchies. As we begin applying similar methods in the supporting institutions, these power relations become more difficult to negotiate.
However, our experiences so far show that FUGs are clearly 'learning how to learn' which has had a positive impact in terms of empowering them to initiate changes. Furthermore, from these processes external organizations and institutions have a greater understanding of the capacity and needs of FUGs, and therefore are better able to provide and target their support. But then in practice, in the field, it is not so easy …'. His words speak about the potential success but also the daily limitations of farmer-to-farmer extension work. While such farmer-led initiatives are promoted as alternatives to the destructive practices of the Green Revolution approach, little is publicly discussed of the daily and personal issues experienced by those directly advocating sustainable agriculture.
Currently, sustainable agriculture and soil conservation projects particularly farmer-to-farmer extension approaches still face many questions about their impact and social dynamics — in spite of their recognized success and obvious need.
The work reported on here addresses some of these problematic issues with regard to participation and team dynamics in such a context. Innovative, joint-stakeholder evaluation processes to measure impacts and to ensure social accountability and economic—environmental relevance of farmer-to-farmer extension work are gaining importance. Several trends in development and agriculture research make it possible to focus greater attention on adapting participatory evaluation methodologies for assessing such farmer-led initiatives:.
Much evaluation work in agriculture still focuses largely on quantitative indicators and provides little insight into qualitative changes in social relations between project staff and between different stakeholders see Avina et al. Traditional indicators of economic validation and biophysical impact alone are now recognized as providing inadequate measures of sustainable development MacGillivray et al. For instance, achieving and measuring technical success in extension or soil conservation work have proven insufficient in resolving basic conflicts between different stakeholders.
Much project-impact analysis still ignores the social forces driving the failure and success of any project. Impact assessment usually does not address social dynamics and learning between, and by, the people who 'make the project happen' or not happen: This chapter addresses at least some of the issues highlighted in developing a participatory stakeholder evaluation approach. Key questions guiding this project are shown in Box 3.
Key questions for learning about farmer-to-farmer projects. What is the potential and actual participatory and democratic nature of these projects, given their declared objective of offering alternatives for successful livelihood strategies for resource-poor farming communities? What can be learned from the successes and mistakes of processes within these programmes in terms of contributing to the professional and institutional evolution of participants and staff whether non-governmental organization NGO or community-based organization CBO?
Who measures and appraises changes occurring within these projects, and whether they are impacting or not on the sustainability of the project work of the community at large? How would this work be conducted? Which indicators for change can be used, and how can they be established and 'translate' such experiences to regional, national and international levels? For which actors are results needed, and how do they perceive the organization's work?
Which methods are appropriate for which stakeholder to design indicators, monitor them and use that information in a systematic way so as to enhance communication of lessons learned?
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The first lessons have subsequently been incorporated into the work of another NGO, Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste MPS , based in the tropical lowland region of Chimalapas, also located in the state of Oaxaca. Both organizations practise the farmer-to-farmer approach in their agricultural work, and work mostly with indigenous subsistence farming communities. The project reported here was designed to develop a participatory evaluation methodology that would feed into ongoing work of the NGOs, farmer-extensionists, and village participants.
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It focused particularly on the joint evaluation of participation and human well-being within a project — both objectives of the farmer-to-farmer approach of agricultural and rural development. Work was undertaken in two separate phases. The first phase was conducted with CETAMEX by working together with farmer-extensionists and villagers to develop a stakeholder-based evaluation methodology.
The purpose was jointly to adapt methodologies that would allow the different actors — farming families, communities, farmer-extensionists, NGO funders, outside researchers, etc. The first phase involved trialling of methods as well as field training of NGO staff and villagers and first exploratory evaluations to help design indicators for future use. Similar work was undertaken also with other stakeholders. During the second phase from March onwards , the farmer-extensionists have been applying some participatory appraisal methods with communities and, since have started to apply participatory indicator design in their social forestry programme in collaboration with a local NGO and a forestry adviser.
This chapter focuses on reporting lessons from the first phase of the work — that of developing the stakeholder evaluation methodology and identifying indicators for participatory impact evaluation. We begin by providing a background on the local organization and the regional context. We then present an overview of the methodology to show how farmers and extensionists used impact-evaluation methods.
Indicators identified by external and internal stakeholders of the project are then presented. Finally, we briefly discuss the utility of the different methods and approaches tested, and their relevance with regard to establishing a stakeholder-based evaluation process. The chapter does not present an evaluation of the farmer-to-farmer project, or the organization itself; we are reporting on a process of methodology development and capacity building for the purposes of institutional learning only. CETAMEX in this region of Mexico trains and organizes — and is staffed mostly by — local farmer-extensionists and has been operating in the state of Oaxaca since At the time of fieldwork, the programme team comprised 14 local, indigenous farmer-extensionists who provide advice on reforestation, nursery, agroecological production techniques, and nutrition to groups and individuals in 36 villages; in they were working directly with some farmers and their communities.
Locally-trained farmers, who are both women and men, in turn have trained over time many other farmers from other organizations and villages in Oaxaca, drawing on the same farmer-to-farmer, agroecological techniques. The extensionists are small-scale farmers and former migrants who have not had formal, technical agricultural or forestry training, but rather have received an 'on-the-job' training from CETAMEX project co-ordinators and advisers.
Farmer-extensionists bring to their work their own knowledge and that of their neighbours about local resource management and agricultural production. This experience is shared systematically with other farmers in the district through village agriculture groups, and through regional organic agriculture projects, organized through parish and diocesan institutions operating in the capital and in outlying villages.
Technical advice is provided by the CETAMEX team to other farmers for free and aims to improve farmers' nutritional levels, economic self-reliance, sustainable natural resource management, and autonomous collaboration at the village level. The organization has often responded to requests by local parishes and groups within the regional diocese that have supported such farmer-to-farmer projects.
However, this increasing demand has also been accompanied by critical developments. Applied research and technical advisory work, for instance, have been problematic: Contradictory or duplicating research, advice and technology development work are common. The farmer-extensionists hold monthly meetings during which each farmer reports on their experiences over the previous month.
This data is summarized every six months into evaluation reports sent to the main funder. These are not complicated reports, but reflect a mostly quantitative, technical assessment of the programme: A yearly evaluation is held inviting all participants from the communities to the programme's offices in the regional market town. Again, the emphasis of these annual meetings has been on presenting quantitative summaries, with the villagers participating in planning the programme activities for the next year in terms of quantitative aims.
Hence, there was increased interest amongst programme staff in learning more about participatory evaluation approaches that would represent differing stakeholder perspectives and assessments of the programme. The aim, therefore, was for the outside research team to assist in the design and testing of a stakeholder-based evaluation methodology in order to better inform farmer-to-farmer extension practice. However, two farmer-extensionists from the team of 14 took on the lead responsibility in field and workshop work throughout this process.
Developing the evaluation methodology was set within a social auditing approach, which assesses the social impact and ethical behaviour of an organization or project in relation to its aims and those of its stakeholders Zadek and Evans, ; Zadek and Raynard, Stakeholders here are not only the organization and its 'beneficiaries' but also other external institutions and non-collaborating community members, or even other NGOs. Social auditing is based on the concept of establishing multiple stakeholder indicators and assessing the social, economic and agroecological impacts and sustainability.
The approach takes into consideration different perspectives, which are represented by various indicators and other information. The guiding principles of social auditing — inclusivity, completeness, comparability, continuous improvement, regularity, external verification and disclosure — are considered to be central to ensuring that beyond the sheer indicator definition, learning and changes take place within an organization from processes of consultative and analytical joint evaluations. The overall approach of the study was then to use a combination of participatory methods that would allow an adaptation of the social auditing process to fit the particular context of this organization and its socioeconomic context.
The objective was actively to involve farmers and other project stakeholders from villages, and to incorporate views held by people from other institutions beyond the NGO project staff or the communities. The action research approach sought to encourage stakeholder analysis, and to analyse social dynamics within the projects and changes in power relations as a result of the projects.
The social auditing approach principally, then, provided a framework for reflection with the project staff on accountability and systematic organizational learning, for which three key methodologies for evaluation were used to adapt social auditing processes to local conditions:.
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The following sections present some of the first experiences and lessons, and trace how a social audit process could be initiated within a farmer-to-farmer project. In practice, social auditing uses an operational set of core indicators defined by different stakeholders and relies on a process of negotiating their adoption for monitoring and evaluation. However, before defining these indicators, monitoring and evaluation objectives first need to be clarified. During a workshop session, the project team defined the objectives of this methodology development project.
The next step was to test the participatory methods discussed above for identifying stakeholder indicators. Method trials were conducted through workshops and fieldwork in collaboration with two farmer-extensionists, the whole CETAMEX team, village participants, as well as other external actors i.
In testing methods, the project team designed the following steps for indicator development, drawing directly from the social audit approach that guided the work:. Seven indicator areas were initially proposed by the research team, but these were eventually narrowed down with CETAMEX to four indicator areas, based on the objectives set out by the group as shown in Table 3. Changes to local and regional, political and sectoral practice and policy including level of dependence on external resources, involvement of local people, growing local institutions, changes in policy and practice.
Changes to the role of individuals in the project including primarily the co-ordinator, outside advisers and immediate project participants, and the families of NGO staff. Changes in the institutional structure including within and beyond the actual project. The programme staff decided to focus on changes in roles and attitudes within the organization itself, the impact of extension work form of dissemination , and on changes in local political spheres — in this case, participation by different stakeholders in the programme's work.
The local team also wanted to appraise the level and nature of participation in their practice, although they felt more secure in focusing on the technical side. As noted earlier, indicators are increasingly demanded for quick information about operational aspects of project work, and refer usually to something measurable, e. Therefore, indicators that emerged from local people's criteria were identified, and these gave weight to events, processes, relationships and leadership development. Then, together with the CETAMEX team, ten main stakeholder groups were identified although some groups were later added as interviews exposed 'hidden' or less 'visible' stakeholders: The selection of stakeholder groups beyond the immediate beneficiaries was essential from the perspective of social auditing, i.
This approach to evaluation responds directly to accountability issues — to the wider community, beyond the 'beneficiaries' — and the need for developing a sense of ownership of the project by local people and institutions. Having identified the range of different institutional and individual actors who affect and are affected by the project, the programme team then prioritized three stakeholder groups to be consulted for indicator development in this trial phase: There were two main methodological approaches used for identifying stakeholder indicators: Organizational ethnography differs from ethnographic studies of whole societies in that it describes groups with more clearly defined boundaries while also considering them within a wider external context Rosen, The study sought to seek out inter-relationships — the implicit and explicit rules and norms emerging and changing within a group of farmer-extensionists and within agricultural groups set up by participating farmers in different villages — in order to understand and explain various forms of participation and individual and group evolution, and barriers thereto.
The key tool used was semi-structured interviews, to construct individual oral histories of farmer-extensionists, and their experiences and involvement in relation to CETAMEX. To this end, previous farmer-extensionists and current staff as well as members of agricultural groups were interviewed. The external research team conducted these interviews, at the request of the staff. The main objective of the interviews was to obtain extensionists' criteria for individual and team self-evaluation, examining the basis of individual motivation and growth, as well as the wider organizational change they had experienced within CETAMEX.
Following each interview, care was taken to respect confidentiality but also to involve farmer-extensionists and villagers in a number of reflective exercises on their own analysis. These exercises used PRA tools, such as Venn diagrams for analysing social dynamics, as well as group reflection and sharing. Based on their personal histories, 'interviewees' identified criteria for becoming involved in soil conservation activities and their expectations of such initiatives. Several farmer-extensionists pointed out the importance of the programme's dependability — its constancy over the years in terms of providing a sense of identity, purpose and income — as the basis for their involvement.
Their criteria for evaluating their initial interest in the programme was one of quick appraisal depending on: It became clear that there existed a dilemma between the individual farmers who expressed personal interest and excitement at experimenting with new technologies, knowledge creation and learning processes, and the wider community who for many years had felt concern about the programme. Non-participants were accusing participants of 'betrayal' for working with a project, or an organization CETAMEX , that improved agricultural production and addressed health issues but was not formally part of the community's own institutions.
This critique in itself is nothing new to farmers and migrants, or, indeed, to many rural development projects. Yet, after 13 years of work in this area, there still has been no resolution to this conflict nor any adjustments made in the programme. The struggle over this dilemma rests squarely on the local extensionists who face dual pressures: The opportunity to visualize the tensions and concerns experienced daily by the staff — through dialogue, visual methods and reflective workshops — was considered to be a great relief for them, a space to acknowledge weaknesses in their work but also to develop new, more participatory ways for planning and assessment that involve the wider communities with whom they work.
Examples of indicator areas and PRA methods used — Phase 1. Farm profiles and flow diagrams: Systems of advisory flows. Seasonal calendars dynamic changes over years-e. Trend analysis quantification with local materials, maps. Evaluation wheel self-evaluation by farmer-extensionist, by village group, workshop participants, programme team. Social map 'invisible' technology uptake. For instance, social mapping of group dynamics and flow diagrams were found to be used most keenly and creatively by extensionists in appraising the team's internal dynamics and visioning for their organization's future.
Critiques, concerns, but also visions, about desired future changes regarding internal communications, favouritism, factions, etc. Using matrix ranking, extensionists could name their own criteria for assessing each other's performance, and listen to the villagers' own criteria. For instance, discussions based on matrix ranking allowed extensionists to listen to women farmers' criteria for preferring the vegetable crops that had been promoted; but the extensionists also learned that the women's appraisal pointed out the programme's neglect of working with local crop species already managed by women.
The extensionists hence learned to apply a tool for encouraging women's assessment of extensionists' work, as well as for bringing out their own reflection on their work and group relations. The advantage of using PRA methods for identifying indicators is that the techniques can be clearly directed at the line of enquiry, focusing on criteria and developing indicators with a group, which semi-structured interviews do not allow on their own.
However, experience showed that it is best for local extensionists and some village group members themselves to have some familiarity with PRA, so that the tools are more effectively utilized. Farmers in the region need sufficient time to develop trust with outside researchers and local extensionists, and freely to articulate and share their views and opinions; the use of PRA tools in themselves does not magically create such trust, nor reveal significant insights by simply discussing the resulting pictures or scoring tables.
After the first period of introductory work, an evaluation exercise was held in parallel in three villages by the enquiry team comprised of villagers and farmer-extensionists, and facilitated by the external research team. Thus, for the first time ever, the extensionists divided into three teams, went into the villages where they had been working for many years, and carried out a multiple-stakeholder assessment of the programme, specifically focusing on the work and behaviour of each extensionist who had worked in that village.
Based on the PRA results, the resulting comments from different village actors and groups were presented to village assemblies or authorities. Back in the office, the three teams gathered again to reflect on lessons and to propose necessary adjustments in the programme. The different methods and steps for selecting indicators were flexibly applied across different social actors and contexts.
These early trials referred to Steps 5 and 6, i. Rather than leaving the programme team alone to prioritize indicators, the process allowed villagers also to learn by focusing initially on the PRA methods and 'daring' them to comment openly. As a result, several adjustments in programme activities were identified. One significant finding was that farmers prioritized social and economic well-being, types of technologies introduced and the performance of extension workers as more important than abstract notions of sustainability e.
Intangible impacts, and the processes underlying them, were clearly important to farmers. Sideways extension number of experimental plots. Strength in defending technical experience locally. Being able to speak the language of farmers. Simplicity in language and management of technology required. Subsequent work Steps 7 onwards has also been designed for different stakeholder groups i. For Steps 7 to 9, a systematic collection of different criteria and indicators is necessary. The aim was to organize the initial stakeholder evaluation criteria into a conceptual framework that would present a general overview of selected indicators, without losing the specific meaning given to each indicator area.
The logic of the 'cone' — categories and variables.
The indicators were loosely combined and integrated using the 'cone' framework see Figure 3. The GDF or 'cone' developed by the IAF is a conceptual framework that attempts to represent both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of programme work see Ritchey-Vance, ; Zaffaroni, It focuses on three levels across a continuum of tangible and intangible impacts: The purpose of this framework is to allow comparisons across a number of projects using fixed categories and variables, but also to present specific indicators reflective of stakeholders' particular priorities and contexts.
The first step was to collate the different criteria identified according to stakeholder groups e.
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However, since it would be impossible to evaluate a project using indicators responding to all these criteria and more , two approaches were considered for indicator selection:. The latter was done in this case, at least with criteria available from fieldwork and workshops Figure 3. The criteria identified by stakeholders, and the indicators subsequently selected, were then arranged according to the six categories designed for the cone Figure 3.
The 22 variables used by the IAF were maintained but made more specific to this programme, by associating a key objective of the organization's mission statement e.
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What is critical then is the need to refine how these indicators are measured, using which methods. The indicator search often revealed more about the stakeholders themselves — the outside professionals, farmer-extensionists, and farmers — than about the actual impacts of the project. The interest in extension styles led to most of the methodological tools being used to seek criteria for appraisal of the work and 'ways of being' of farmer-to-farmer extensionists.
However, several external stakeholders did voice their concern over leadership styles and efficacy in conducting the programme. They stated that 'one can be technically very capable, but still be authoritarian', which referred in particular to the CETAMEX co-ordinator, whose working style is known in the region to be abrupt with non-church institutions. On the other hand, both funders and church-related stakeholders share values with CETAMEX in terms of their participatory approach to rural. Categorization of sample indicators. Policy environment society local, regional, national , tangibles.
Hectares of plots on which farmers use them for building contour bunds. Changes in technology single-cropped maize, beans in rows in similar agro- ecological and social contexts. Number of smallholder communities that have adopted single-cropped maize. Of the total of decisions taken: Unity within the team and the community: Whether everyone knows the work of their colleagues. Whether everyone knows the budget of the organization in and out flows.
Whether all know what is happening, and why, in the decision making processes and with regard to training issues. How many decisions, and in which areas, have been taken over the last year in this way? Unlike other external actors who are perhaps more critical of the programme, these supporters in general praise the persistence and consistency of the work conducted by programme staff.
Their evaluation criteria are based mainly on political interests in working with poor farmers and their families for change, as well as recognizing value in how extensionists identify themselves still as farmers rather than as technical advisers, in order to stress the importance of local knowledge and non-hierarchical relations within the villages. Farmers from 'beneficiary' villages were very cautious and polite, as is so often the case, when the evaluation methodology was being developed. They generally avoided open criticism or conflict; hence, using ranking techniques with farmers often produced findings that were 'flat' and less meaningful.
For instance, in the presence of farmer-extensionists or the collaborating nuns, farmers identified criteria for evaluating certain technologies that were almost a literal repeat of what had been taught to them in technical courses, and had to be disaggregated further with them to invite independent opinions. PRA tools helped in making this articulation somewhat less threatening, by allowing an opinion to be expressed on paper, on the ground, or to a mixed group of 'questioners'.
Yet, some of the PRA tools were limited in their utility for monolingual and highly shy women where village men would insist on being present, and matrix ranking required some confidence building first because participants remained reluctant to openly express their opinions so as to avoid potential disagreements and conflicts.
Theatre and conventional focus groups may have been more effective, though often requiring professional translation for team members as well as for external researchers. The process revealed that farmer-extensionists demand of each other and of themselves just as much as communities expect of them with regard to their work.
Extensionists emphasize imparting practical knowledge and honesty in carrying out their work: Finally, while the 'cone' framework helped systematize some of the criteria and indicators selected by the various stakeholders about the work of CETAMEX, it cannot tell a complete story of the organizational learnings that the CETAMEX team underwent during these trials.
The ideal of the farmer-to-farmer approach means that being an extensionist also involves learning how to run one's own organization, following World Neighbor's approach to self-sufficiency and self-management by local people. Although the programme at the commencement of this work had not openly addressed issues of its own organizational growth, internal communication and leadership, considerable conflicts existed and were eventually visualized in terms of internal groupings, financial administration, gender relations and recognition of skills as well as political institutional relations.
The methodological approaches used in this work helped to offer insights into how people within the project — and the families within wider communities — have been struggling with the challenge of changing institutional, or indeed organizational forms, such as CETAMEX and how the skills of the extensionists have evolved. The search for indicators and participatory evaluation led, in the end, to reflection and even negotiation of differences over concerns about accountability and democratic organizational rules and procedures.
Because much data is generated by PRA work, it is more useful to combine PRA with a framework such as the 'cone' to organize information and clarify understanding. The social audit approach also offers a systematic way of structuring stakeholder consultations, and, when combined with PRA methods, can ensure that the 'hidden' stakeholders, such as family members and non-participants, are included and their opinions are expressed e. This may require using conventional questionnaires while also relying more on participatory tools, such as PRA or organizational ethnographies.
The methodological steps and the perceived 'value-added' benefits of such activities therefore need to be highly concrete and specific in order for participants to engage in the process. Our first experience in testing methods showed that some tools would not be appropriate for farmers' monitoring, simply because they will require considerable time investment from a project that offers little immediate financial return. Nevertheless, focus group discussions have helped not only to save on time in identifying and analysing stakeholder criteria and indicators, but also saved on computerized data analysis for evaluation purposes.
Ultimately, PRA tools are useful in triggering participatory discussions and analyses rather than providing answers in themselves. Praxis still has to show whether farmers and farmer-extensionists will use PRA and other participatory tools in the future to construct the kind of evaluation system that makes most sense for the organization and that captures the types of change processes they want to see functioning in their communities. The first lessons in testing methods revealed that self-evaluatory tools can best be used by programme staff or village groups to improve extension work by looking at internal group dynamics, changes in work styles over time, local participation and limits to farmer adoption of technologies.
However, avoidance of addressing power issues relating to leadership issues, external relations, internal communications, and reward systems, within the organization can constrain effective learning, particularly with regard to sustaining participation within the organization or project. The process of participatory evaluation and indicator development can itself trigger conflict and division within an organization, as various perspectives of assessments are brought in.
This will require conflict management skills and strong leadership to harness or shape potential divisions or conflict into a learning process. In this context, social auditing provides a systematic and principled process of enhancing organizational transparency by shared learning and reflection on change processes in the organization. This approach can give a systematic structure to the process of using the highly qualitative work of organizational ethnography, and the often very broad information obtained through PRA-based work.
These lessons, drawn from the work with farmers and their technical advisers in Oaxaca, are only the starting point in establishing a process that we hope will better communicate success and challenges in promoting farmer-to-farmer extension. Future work needs to consider other village participants and non-participants indirectly involved and affected by these farmer-led projects, since they may have additional tools for voicing their evaluation of such initiatives and could therefore contribute towards strengthening farmer-extension work.
The goal of such research is to develop sustainable agricultural technologies appropriate for heterogeneous environments occupied by poor farming communities. Another research objective is to improve understanding of the processes involved, their outcomes and wider applicability. Partners in this type of research project are often state research institutions or extension departments, which are typically bureaucratic but are wide reaching. The research is likely to involve a range of stakeholders, especially when the research is initiated by external actors responding to identified local needs.
Stakeholders include donors, researchers, local institutions, and farmers with particular interests or direct involvement in the research. Stakeholder interests and the state institutions that support the research become significant factors influencing the process of developing agricultural technologies, monitoring performance, and evaluating impacts. For instance, donor interests pressure researchers to produce generalizable results of farm trials in order to apply research outputs more widely.
Another important factor affecting technology development research is in the nature of the technology itself. Previous attempts to involve farmers in the evaluation of technologies generally dealt with simple change, for example, evaluating the impact of introducing a range of crop varieties e. Ashby, ; Joshi and Witcombe, However, many of the technologies appropriate for sustainable or low-input agriculture involve more complex changes that affect management of the whole farming system. This chapter describes two projects — one in Bolivia and the other in Laos — that deal with these particular challenges in monitoring and evaluating impacts of new technology: The projects were collaborative initiatives carried out by local research institutions, external researchers, NGOs, people's organizations POs , and individual farmers see Box 4.
The projects and institutions featured in this chapter. Participatory improvement of soil and water conservation in hillside farming systems, Bolivia. ClAT is a government research institution which aims to have a farming systems approach to research, most of which is currently conducted on station.
CIAT does not strictly carry out extension but is involved in technology transfer through its close links with NGOs and producer organizations in the department of Santa Cruz. It has experience with on-farm trials, but these are designed and controlled by technicians, and farmers' perspectives are not formally taken into account in the evaluation of such trials. This project aims to strengthen soil and water conservation practices in the temperate valleys, through information exchange and support of farmer experimentation. It is ClAT's first experience of supporting trials that are designed entirely by farmers and that involve farmers in the evaluation.
Addressing technical, social and economic constraints to developing rice — fish culture in Laos. The LFS in Savannakhet Province is at an early stage in its institutional development and is currently supported by the Asian Institute of Technology AIT Outreach Project to strengthen its capacity to work with farmers to develop and manage small-scale aquatic resources. Staff have no concrete experience with research, and do not have a national or local research system from which they obtain technical recommendations. Therefore, the LFS would like to strengthen its own institutional procedures for formulating and testing recommendations.
The loA project is working with the LFS and interested farmers to investigate and address farmers' constraints to raising fish in rice fields and to emphasize women's role in technology development. Each project is characterized by its environmental diversity and the lack of available technology appropriate for the ecological zone see Table 4. The complexity of the local environment led researchers to propose a participatory approach for developing farming systems based on farmers' own knowledge and priorities.
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