A one-line summary of EWB’s Agric Strategy in Ghana could be: to improve the way MoFA delivers agricultural extension services. Of course, this is my one-line interpretation of a very large document, but hopefully the other EWBers over here will agree with me on this one. In the Northern and Upper East Regions of Ghana, EWB is focusing on the development and delivery as the AAB Curriculum. This program helps to provide AEAs with some of the tools they require to build business and market skills, and impart these to their farmer groups.
In the Upper West, we have taken a different approach. Farmers are out in their fields on a daily basis, and due to many different reasons (to be discussed another time) do not have the technologies that from a Western point of view, would call “appropriate”. Many farmers have therefore, out of necessity, have found a way to work with the resources that they do have access to. Through the Farmer Innovation Challenge, MoFA has begun to capture these farmer innovations and indigenous technologies as a way of promoting participatory farm management and education. Similarly, the MoFA Innovation Challenge was also born to encourage MoFA employees to take ownership for improving internal processes and activities. During my four months here, I will be focusing on transitioning these challenges from a one-time activity to a sustained learning process within extension services.
Now for a few more details …
Farmer Innovation Challenge (FIC) - Lessons From the Field
The underlying goal of FIC was to improve the way extension services are delivered to district farmers. The traditional model is that agric technologies and practices are transferred to the farmers through a top-down model. The AEA receives information from the district (who has received mandates from Accra), and then shares this information with farmers in his regions.
A few months ago a workshop was held where AEAs were invited to share the innovations that already exist in their districts. They were encouraged to conduct an innovation search among their farmers, and to bring their findings to the workshop.
The workshop defined a Farmer Innovation as a new technology, idea or solution that the farmer him/herself has come out with. This includes adaptations to technologies or solutions. Some examples which were identified include:
Alternative Farm labor Agreements: A district farmer, in response to continual labor shortages on his farm, created an agreement with orphans. The agreement is such that they will work on his farm for an agreed duration of time, after which point he sets them up with the necessary inputs and capital to start up their own farm.
Harvest bicycle: A farmer has put extra spokes on his bicycle so as to make it strong enough to carry the harvest from his farm to his house.
Indigenous Technologies, here meaning a technology, practice, technique or solution to a problem which has been passed down to farmers from their ancestors, were also captured during this workshop. The majority of technologies identified were alternatives to costly pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. Some examples include:
Tobacco pesticide: Grinding up tobacco and using it as a pesticide on crops. Salt bitter can be added to increase the potency if required.
Neem leaf pesticide: Boiling, drying and grinding the neem leaf for use as a pesticide. This is an adaptation of the original neem tree indigenous technology where the neem seed is ground up and used as a pesticide.
Moringa pesticide: Grinding the bark of the moringa tree and using it as a pesticide on legumes and a storage material for cowpea.
Bird fertilizer: Collecting bird excrement from under a tree where they congregate. The fertilizer is used on dry season gardening plots.
An important part of the workshop was a discussion among AEAs and District Leaders on how best use and share these innovations, to encourage further innovation in their districts, and to facilitate farmer problem solving. While we are already in the process of compiling a booklet of the identified innovations and technologies for sharing across the districts, I will be helping to develop an action plan on how to make this bottom-up learning a more integral process of extension services. I am currently going out with AEAs to understand field schools, demonstration plots, etc. and to observe how AEAs interact with their farmers. From this, I will work with the directors to determine if a workshop on participatory approaches is appropriate. While officers learn the importance of participatory involvement in extension and agric experimentation while in agric college, it has been many years for some since they have had a formal reminder. With many activities they are tasked to do, it sometimes becomes a matter of just relaying the required messages from Accra.
I will also be working with the directors to find ways to incorporate this process of learning from the field into existing activities. This may involve helping to create space in monthly meetings for reporting by AEAs of problems and innovations, or creating a new forum where these discussions occur. I’m still working through a game plan, trying to figure out how to best approach this in the 16 weeks I have remaining here. As I do so, here are a few of the questions that have started to bubble in my mind.
- A key objective of EWB’s agric work is to learn why farmers are/aren’t adopting technologies. How do we balance supporting farmer innovations and independent thinking with working to improve new technology adoption? By publishing a booklet of "rural knowledge", are we running the risk of perpetuating "bad" practices?
- Are the “new” technologies MoFA is promoting better than indigenous technologies (eg. aforementioned pesticides)? Are demonstration plots looking at these technologies in an appropriate manner?
- The primary focus of new technology adoption is to increase yield, and therefore profit for the farmer. What are the benefits/impacts of adopting chemical technologies over the natural, indigenous technologies to the health and environment of the farmers? Does this outweigh the need for increased profit?
- Does handing out “technology” reduce the level of innovation and adaptability of farmers in overcoming problems in the future?
- How can we encourage AEAs to find out what their farmers are doing? Can we help them to identify and capitalize on similarities and differences between new and old practices?
- What does the ideal agric change journey look like? How does this differ from what MoFA is experience in their extension programs?
- Which is the bigger challenge: resource constraints (agric inputs, labor, AEA resources) or adoption/behavioral changes? To what degree do these two factors compound each other? Where do current extension services place the emphasis? How does this balance need to be adjusted to see the results we are looking for?
I’ve got a lot to think about, and am thus encouraging you to pass along any thoughts you might have on the above questions. I need help!
MoFA Innovation Challenge (MIC) - Making MoFA Better From Within
The objective of this challenge was to encourage all MoFA staff at the district level to come up with innovative new ways of doing their jobs which will improve the relevancy, efficiency and effectiveness of MoFA work. The belief is that for any organization to be effective it must be continuously learn from its experiences, identifying problems, finding innovative solutions and changing its approach. Thus, the desired outcome of this challenge was to help staff see that they can push for process change internally, and to help them to develop their ability to look at projects and processes and evaluate and integrate the lessons learned.
Prior to my arrival the call for innovation was put out to three districts in the Upper West. Since this challenge was being funded external to the regular budget staff were encouraged to put forth ideas, projects/approaches that may be of higher risk than normally accepted for approval. The emphasis of MIC is on experimenting and learning from experience, to build capacity for future innovation and change. Eighteen proposals came back, and then were subsequently evaluated for funding approval. Ideally, all would have been funded, but due to limited resources, only some received funding at this time. (Note: Some of the ideas were also proposed at no-cost, and are being implemented. In providing examples I have not distinguished between these innovations and ones that required funding).
Suggestion Box: Hierarchy is very prevalent in Ghanaian business, especially within government offices. This may inhibit staff from voicing opinions or offering criticism of poor practices. The district director will create a suggestion box to be placed in the district office where staff can anonymously offer feedback. The suggestions will be read at the monthly meetings and discussed. For issues of significant concern, committees will be established to further investigate the issue and develop any necessary action plans.
AEA Conceived Demonstrations: Demonstration plots are primarily dictated by the research department. Two AEAs will conduct a demonstration on a farming practice that he finds most pertinent to the farmers in his operational area and on a topic of which he has particular expertise. Specifically, demonstrations for bee-keeping and mango nursing will be demonstrated as income generating projects, which can be pursued during the dry season for sustained income for the farmers.
Weather Forecast Farmer Training: An AEA will hold a workshop to sensitize farmers in his operational area on the functioning of the new weather forecast gadgets which have been distributed to the districts. The goal is to gather farmer feedback and build trust and demand for weather reports. At the workshop farmers will also develop a system for disseminating the weather forecasts amongst themselves.
District Radio Show: All AEAs and DAOs within the specified district are invited to present topics of particular relevance to the district to be discussed on a weekly radio show. Farmers will also be invited to suggest topics of importance and share their own ideas and best practices on air.
Supervision Scheme: Having recognized that district officers do not visit the field and supervise as often as would be optimal, the district has come together to create some solutions. AEAs will document and report at the monthly meetings on how many times they were visited by which officers. There will be prizes for officers who visit the field most often. The district will regularly track improvements to supervision over time through anonymous surveys.
I was surprised at some of the ideas that came forward, they seem so simple. However, I guess this underscores the need to encourage organizational change. I am starting to follow-up with the innovators to see how their progress. I am currently identifying criteria which will help us evaluate the success of the innovation implementation, and hope to translate this to a tool to help evaluate the feasibility and appropriateness of new proposals and ideas. We will be organizing a workshop after the farming season, where the innovators will be able to come together with other district and regional staff and share their experiences. In kicking off the challenges, prizes for the most innovative ideas, and districts were offered. Thus, following the presentations, there will be peer evaluation of the innovations. Instead of a simple vote, which I think was the original idea, I am trying to develop a grading tool which will look at the factors which define a good extension innovation, such as, the impact level, scalability, sustainability, potential for farmer buy-in. (Again, if anyone has ideas or literature on this, send it my way please). This will provide an opportunity for discussion how to improve extension services. As with the Farmer Innovation Challenge, we will be publishing a document describing the innovations and some the key lessons learned.
While the Farmer and MoFA Innovation Challenges represent the bulk of my placement, there are two other areas that I will be working on.
Expanding our Strategies
The delivery of AAB is still very top heavy. While the teaching of market and business skills is very valuable and much needed, there is a danger that this could fall into the same “one-way” information exchange that many other extension services has. As I work with staff in my district in understanding the successes and learnings of the two innovation challenges, I hope to share this with the AAB team to improve the delivery of their program. I need to learn more about AAB in order to know what would be worthwhile to share with them, but I feel that what I will learn in the Upper West will be valuable in driving forward AAB curriculum improvements.
Understanding Performance Incentives
As part of our pre-departure training, each JF was given a research topic related to our sector strategy. My topic was something to the extent of exploring performance incentive theory, and how it is approached in private versus public sectors. Since our activities are focusing on agric extension, the motivation behind this question to develop a better understanding of how to get AEAs to provide exceptional extension services to their district. As I started exploring how to facilitate high performance in government organizations, my interest peaked (guess I am more of a management/human performance consultant than I want to admit to being). I feel that placement has given me a natural environment to continue this research, and so have added it to my placement objectives. Even though I have only been here a week, I already see large differences in attitudes and approaches different AEAs take. I look forward to exploring this topic more over the upcoming months. Being the academic person I am, I would love to write a short article on this, but I won’t promise anything at this point …
It seems like I have just a little bit of work laid out ahead of me, and yet at the same time, I'm not sure how to go about doing it, or if there is even anything I can effectively do. However, I'm sure I'll figure things out, and do the best I can. Four months is an incredibly short time to make any sort of lasting impact. If I can bring away any knowledge or insights that can help shape the strategy of EWB's work going forward then I can perhaps feel like I have accomplished something.
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