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This paper is based on participatory development research carried out in Soroti district of Uganda with the aim to assess the impact of agricultural development among poor farmers. The central argument in this study is that a combination of farmer empowerment and innovation through experiential learning in FFS groups and [...]

The issue of empowerment is of increasing relevance to CARE. During the last few years, the organization has been giving greater emphasis to right-based approaches that ‘empower people to claim and exercise their rights and fulfill their responsibilities’. More recently, CARE-Bangladesh has started to plan a new programme for the [...]

What considerations lead policymakers to invest in agricultural extension as a key public responsibility, and what factors and agency incentives explain differences in extension system performance? To help answer these questions, this article provides a framework outlining farmers’ demand for information, the public goods character of extension services, and the [...]

Many technological innovations have been developed to improve agricultural productivity in Sub Sahara. However, the adoption of these innovations has been low. Appropriate extension models are often seen as the missing link between adoption and the achievement of productivity gains. Although, Zimbabwe’s agriculture continues to be a vital cog in [...]

Farmer field school programs incorporating farmer participatory research (FPR-FFS) have the potential to provide important benefits to their participants and to other farmers who benefit from improved cultivars and management techniques. An FPR-FFS program in San Miguel, Cajamarca, Peru, has been in place since 1999 with an emphasis on management [...]

Farmer Field Schools (FFS) are an intensive training approach introduced in the last decade in many developing countries to promote knowledge and uptake of ecologically sensible production approaches, and in particular, integrated pest management which minimises pesticide use. Because of the high training cost, the viability of the program depends [...]

Eight researchers from Ghana and Benin, with different backgrounds but all co-operating within the Convergence of Sciences project, conducted diagnostic studies as a first step of their research aimed at developing technologies together with resource-poor farmers. The purpose of including diagnostic studies was to increase the likelihood that the resulting [...]