Science and Technology Mailing List Archive

["Peter Dorward" <<address removed>>]

  As a new subscriber to the email list I'd like to make a couple of 
comments following Colin Poulton and James Biscoes helpful contributions 
on extension.

  Economic methods
  As noted by James Biscoe the financial benefits and costs associated 
with an innovation are important and extension staff need to explore 
them with farmers for their own circumstances.  However, conventional 
farm management methods such as budgeting were heavily promoted in 
government extension services in the 80s in many countries but were 
unpopular with staff and smallholder farmers. A DFID funded project I 
was involved in looked at why this was the case and developed some 
alternative approaches. Limitations of conventional budgeting methods 
identified included that they do not relate sufficiently to factors that 
smallholders in risky environments consider important when making 
decisions about changing their practices. It was concluded that novel 
farm management type methods for smallholder farmers were therefore 
needed which take into account: Resources other than just money which 
are important to farmers (eg food products for subsistence); Quantities 
of all the different inputs needed for an enterprise; Timing of 
activities, resource use and production during the whole period of the 
enterprise (as this is crucial for decision making. Also some decisions 
are only made during the season when farmers know what conditions 
actually are eg how much labour they have available). Participatory 
budgets were developed as a means of achieving this with farmers and 
have had some success. Training and supporting extension in these and 
other relevant approaches could make a useful contribution.

  Motivation of field staff:
  As well as developing skills of staff, motivation is particularly 
important for successful extension. From spending time with field staff 
in Zimbabwe and Malawi in their  'wards' it was clear that the 
motivation of individual extension field staff is often overlooked. 
Despite the crucial role they play, or could play, field staff are 
largely left to their own devices. Poor pay, limited resources 
(including transport), and very importantly limited interest from or 
contact with supervisors or managers, all mean that levels of motivation 
are often low. The amount and quality of work varies considerably 
between field staff depending to an extent on the degree to which an 
individual can fulfil his/her own motives through work. For example some 
were strongly motivated by their status and perceived value in the 
community and therefore focused on activities that fulfilled these eg 
public meetings, contact with better off farmers, some were not 
motivated at all through work and did  little, and of course a few 
(normally younger staff) were highly motivated individuals and made 
major contributions to development in their wards despite the limited 
support they received. What motivates field staff and how management and 
support could increase and sustain motivation are probably areas worthy 
of attention.


  Dr Peter Dorward
  School of Agriculture, Policy and Development
  The University of Reading
  Box 236
  Reading
  Tel: 0 118 9318492





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