Work programme 3: Develop/promote effective communication/learning models for informed IPM decision making leading to higher, sustainable and healthier harvests.

Background

The success of IPM depends largely on how well farmers understand and combine knowledge of biological and ecological processes with their farming experience to develop/select options that reduce losses to pests, increase agricultural productivity, manage risk, and meet the demands of local and global markets. Globally, the IPM community is convinced that farmer participatory research (FPR) and farmer participatory learning (FPL) ensure good communication between researchers and farmers leading to integration of scientific and indigenous knowledge to make research more understandable and useful.

Towards this end, the SP-IPM encourages mentored study exchange visits, participatory learning sessions and establishes ‘pilot sites’ as part of its implementation strategy to make more IPM options available in farming communities, promote informed decision making by farmers to solve location-specific problems, and assist participating organizations to gain experience in developing effective research-farmer-extension partnerships. The pilot sites also serve as focal points for advocacy efforts to demonstrate the usefulness and benefits of IPM research to decision-makers and thereby help encourage the development and promotion of IPM-friendly policies within their respective spheres of influence.

Principal activities

  • Develop/promote participatory models for learning and adopting IPM
  • Develop/promote and apply guidelines for learning, promoting, and incorporating FPR and FPL approaches into IPM and mainstream agriculture
  • Train/orient researchers, technicians, extension/field agents and project managers to integrate FPR and PL approaches in IPM.
  • Establish pilot sites to promote closer collaboration among partner organizations and increase farmers’ capacity to investigate and solve pest constraints more effectively
  • Develop mechanisms for large scale uptake of proven IPM development and learning approaches and of farmer-proven IPM technologies.

Top
Achievements
  • 12 frontline project staff completed 7-10 days of mentored reciprocal exchange visits between pairs of projects/programs with contrasting FPR and PL approaches across agroecologies and cultures projects in Latin America, Asia and Africa
  • 43 participants (IPM facilitators, researchers, extensionists, project managers) from 24 different countries and representing the different partners jointly analyzed study tour case studies and experiences at a global learning workshop
  • Guidelines on the principles and practices of FPR/FPL that underpin successful IPM developed for IPM practitioners (being developed as an IPM brief)
  • A common vision developed on what various stakeholders would need to do differently in order to increase the effectiveness of participatory approaches in IPM
  • SP-IPM revitalized international consensus and collaboration to promote IPM of parasitic weeds in cereal–legume cropping systems in Africa. The stakeholder groups involved are SP-IPM partner research organizations, the Pan-African Striga Control Network (PASCON), the Agriculture Department of FAO’s Regional Office for Africa (FAORAFA), AU’s Semi-Arid Food Grains Research and Development programme (AU/SAFGRAD), and the FAO/Global IPM Facility
  • SP-IPM pilot sites on parasitic weeds have graduated into FAO/TCP regional projects for Orobanche in food legumes in North Africa (6 countries) and Striga in staple cereals in West Africa (3 countries)