Title: DISSEMINATION PATHWAYS FOR SCALING UP AGROFORESTRY
TECHNOLOGIES IN WESTERN TANZANIA
By: Peter Z. Matata
Agricultural Research Institute- Tumbi, Tabora Tanzania
2. INTRODUCTION
Agroforestry research in Tanzania has focused on the problem of
soil fertility , dry season fodder shortage and fuelwood
scarcity
Simple innovations e.g. a new variety that overcome specific
problems may be adopted relatively easily.
Despite intense promotion, farmer adoption may be lower than
anticipated because of many reasons
To achieve greater impact, our strategy focused on working
through existing government, non-government and other development
organizations, and farmer groups
It aimed at influencing partner organizations and their
policies through networking, lobbying and collaboration.
While collaborating with different partners, potential for
successes and failures, and transaction costs are assessed to
better understand the effective way of scaling up of agroforestry
technologies.
3. AGROFORESTRY RESEARCH AND DISSEMINATION NETWORK
Farmers groups in western zone was linked to the National
Network of Small-Scale Farmer Groups in Tanzania
The National Network of Small-Scale Farmer Groups facilitated
coordination and streamline on-farm research, training, and
dissemination
The Network was expected to act as a catalyst and
action-oriented group
The benefits of networking are the people and organizations
exchange information and share knowledge and skills that are
difficult to get through independent works
The Network has created a forum for organizations to share
their knowledge, skills and assess the state of the art knowledge
in Agroforestry
The network meeting brought out that the most important
constraints to wider adoption of technologies were limited
awareness of agroforestry options, inadequate capacities of
partners and farmers, and lack of access to germplasm.
4. Cont
A major task of the network at each meeting was to plan for
scaling up activities for subsequent season which included deciding
on the type of activities and developing schedule of
implementation.
At the meeting, scaling up strategies were elaborated which
including farmer - farmer training, field days, farmer exchange
visits and establishing demonstrations and working with local
chiefs
The most outstanding feature of the Network has been its
ability to provide feedback into the research process, enabling
researchers to refine their experiments and designing new ones to
answer the needs of the farmers and partners.
This was possible through close interaction between researchers
and partners during meetings
5. Objectives
To review different dissemination pathways used to scale out
agroforestry options in Western Tanzania and assess their
relevance.
6. Study Area Tabora LOCTION: Western Tanzania Located:
latitude 5 o S; longitude 32 o E; altitude 1190 m. above sea level
within the miombo woodlands Area: 34,698 km 2 Pop: 1,717,908
Economic activities: Agriculture (Maize & Tobacco) and
Livestock keeping Rainfall: Unimodal type of rainfall
7. Methodology and data sources
The study was carried-out in five villages of Tabora
Region:
The major reason for selecting these villages was that Tumbi/ICRAF
had earlier made them focal villages for agroforestry
experimentation . Data sources
8. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Farmer - trainers
The failure of agricultural extension services to make an
impact on the adoption of new technologies has stimulated interest
in alternative approaches to extension
Farmer participation in agricultural development plans is
becoming a central issue of our time
The use of farmer-trainers and local leaders as alternatives
has been considered for reaching out more numbers of farmers
effectively and in a sustainable manner.
The use of farmer-trainers as a dissemination pathway requires
that specialist in various aspects of the technology train selected
farmers so that they can train fellow farmers.
9. Agroforestry specialist teaching farmers
10. Farmer exchange visit at Malolo village (2009)
11. Cont
Seventy- six percent (76%) of the farmers felt that
farmer-trainers were more effective for dissemination of improved
fallows than government extension staff.
They were the source of information on improved fallows to 43%
of the farmers interviewed in comparison with the government
agricultural extension officers who provided the first information
to only 25% of the farmers.
In spite of department of extension under the Ministry of
Agriculture food and Cooperatives organizing radio programmes in
Swahili language for four weeks, only 2% of farmers indicated the
radio as their initial source of information on improved
fallow
12. Initial source of information for farmers about improved
fallows in the study area, western zone Tabora, Tanzania
13. Numbers of farmers per year who had come to know about
improved fallow technology for the first time in the study area
Western zone Tanzania
14. Cont
The greatest strength of farmer-trainers is their ability to
try out the technologies with farmers and to determine their
ability to try out the technologies
Farmertrainers have become more convincing to farmers than
extension staff.
In a monitoring exercise , it was observed that farmer-trainers
who had prior experience of planting improved fallow on their own
farms had influenced more farmers
The use of the farmertrainers for dissemination is much more
economical than government staff
They can reach more farmers as they are widely spread out, even
in areas where agricultural extension services have not been able
to reach
15. Agricultural extension service
Dissemination of new technologies has traditionally been the
governments responsibility through the Ministry of Agriculture Food
security and Cooperatives (MAFC).
They are capable of disseminating agroforestry innovations
However, lack of resources limited the work of extension
staff.
These limitations increase the time taken by them to pass on
information on new technologies to farmers .
.
The survey conducted in Urambo, in Tabora region, revealed that
extension staff experienced many constraints in their daily
operations
Reporting has become more routine task than addressing issues
emanating from their work.
16. Local leaders
The Network identified local leaders are being influential and
capable in organizing farmer meetings .
It is hoped that such gatherings could provide opportunities
for disseminating agroforestry technologies.
Our study, however, revealed that 78% of the farmers were
against involving local leaders as forefront extension agents.
The government extension staff and farmer-trainers could
therefore collaborate with local leaders whenever they work and not
necessarily involve them in activities that would jeopardize their
authority.
However, local leaders could contribute in disseminating
improved fallows by themselves taking up the new technology so that
their people under their leadership could emulate them with
confidence.
17. CONCLUSION
The ongoing work of on dissemination of improved fallows and
other technologies in Tanzania emphasizes the importance of
communication, training, extension and follow-up research.
The formation of the Network, frequent meetings and workshops
involving all the stakeholders superbly served the purpose of
achieving greater scaling up.
The agricultural system in Tanzania is faced with many
challenges, foremost being its inability to meet the demands of the
field staff due to limited budgets.
Farmer-trainers work towards building local foundations such as
groups and associations, which will allow them to continue pursuing
AF
We conclude that farmer-trainers are very effective in
dissemination of agroforestry innovations. The Network provided a
forum for participatory evaluation of on-farm research, and act as
catalyst and action oriented group