Farmer Research Committee

rdf:langString Farmer Research Committee

rdf:langString Farmer Research Committees (also known in Latin America as Comites de Investigacion Agropecuario Local or CIALs ) are an approach to community organizing and agricultural extension that provide rural communities and farmer organizations in developing countries with adaptive research and technology testing services run by volunteer farmers. This approach to agricultural innovation is used in international development and rural community development for improving adoption of appropriate technology and the development of sustainable agriculture. The approach involves collaboration and joint decision-making among extension agents, farmers and researchers to develop locally acceptable farming practices and accelerate their adoption. Farmer Research Committees also produce a broad set of benefits that are generally referred to as empowerment,including the increased self-esteem and effectiveness of farmers to organise and negotiate with extension service and agricultural input providers, market chain actors, banks and politicians. Farmer Research Committees do adaptive research experiments to help farmers manage the risk of trying something new that extension has not validated under local conditions. In Latin America, numerous Farmer Research Committees have been particularly effective in evaluating and selecting new varieties and multiplying seed, enabling large numbers of farmers to access a new variety at low cost, improve their food security, generate employment and increase their income. On a lesser scale, Farmer Research Committees have worked on small machinery, fertilisers or pest and disease control regimes, enabling the adoption of cost-effective strategies in which local farmers have confidence. Farmer Research Committees may have an important role to play in rural communities' adaptation of their agriculture to climate change and globalization because they increase community-level innovative and adaptive capacity by strengthening its human and social capital. In contrast to Farmer Field Schools which are intended to transmit proven extension recommendations to farmers using experimentation for discovery learning, Farmer Research Committees set out to generate new recommendations. Their results are usually a novel blend of what was already known and what was unknown, drawing on both and external resources. Farmer research committees and farmer field schools can be highly complementary, as is discussed in more detail below