For further information contact: Peter Kerridge

Related Web sites: CIAT in Asia, Sustainable Cassava Production Systems in Asia, Tropileche

[<< previous project] [next project >>]

The Challenge

Considerable effort has gone into developing new technologies for and with these farmers, but the resulting "packages" of improved crop varieties and new management practices were often not suited to farmers' circumstances. To ensure that innovations are appropriate, it is vital that farmers' perspectives and skills be brought more fully to bear on technology development within the context of whole farming systems. Particular attention must be paid to farmers' concern about minimizing the risks associated with new technologies. Moreover, in addressing problems of natural resource degradation, research must be carried out, not just with individual farmers, but at the community and landscape levels.

Numerous organizations are working to reduce poverty and natural resource degradation in rural communities, but there is a general lack of coordination among them, and many pursue a supply- rather than client-driven approach. Thus, an important challenge is to create frameworks for a multi-institutional, participatory approach that solves farmers' most urgent problems by integrating new crop varieties with improved management practices in agricultural landscapes.

Objective

To develop integrated crop, livestock, and tree technologies that are productive, sustainable, and suited to farmers' circumstances through participatory approaches and in collaboration with national programs.

Outputs

• Integrated land use options that help preserve the natural resource base
• Appropriate technologies for the agricultural environments where CIAT works
• Decision-support guidelines for farmers and researchers at the local level and for planners and policy makers at both the local and national levels
• Training and related support that increases the capacity of national institutions and farmer groups to conduct participatory research on agricultural production systems and components of these systems

Benefits

This project primarily benefits low-income farmers through the development of technologies that enable them to strengthen food security, raise incomes, and protect the natural resource base. Wider adoption of environmentally sound farming practices benefits society as a whole. New options for planners and policy makers strengthen the research capacities of national institutions.

Strategy

Through collaboration with a wide range of partners, this project develops more productive and sustainable technologies that integrate new germplasm with improved resource management practices. Germplasm drawn from CIAT projects and other sources is incorporated with improved management practices through farmer participatory research, leading to the development of technologies that are suited to farmers' circumstances.

Project scientists evaluate alternative technologies from CIAT and other organizations at the watershed level for their biological, social, and economic effects on productivity and the environment. They analyze trade-offs between private and public costs and benefits to produce a range of options for local and national policy makers. By working closely with national partners and farmers, the project develops more effective models for technology development and institutional collaboration.

This research is carried out by teams at ecoregional benchmark sites and by specific projects, such as Tropileche in Latin America and Forages for Smallholders in Southeast Asia.

Project Partners

International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Cali, Colombia

The Center offers expertise in research on crop improvement and agronomy, livestock production, farmer participatory methods, and soil and watershed management.

Organizations in developing countries

The project works with numerous government and nongovernment organizations in Latin America (Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Peru), Southeast Asia (China, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam), and eastern Africa (Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda).

Other advanced institutions

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Ethiopia, International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) in Kenya, Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and the Oxford Forestry Institute (OFI) in the UK provide valuable expertise in research on crop, tree, livestock, and resource management.

[<< previous project] [next project >>]