Cameroon’s rural resource centres
Towards the end of the 1990s, the World Agroforestry Centre helped to train some 50 extension workers in Cameroon’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in the techniques associated with the domestication of indigenous fruit trees (see page 11).

“The training went well,” recalls Ebenezar Asaah, a tree scientist with the World Agroforestry Centre, “but the project ended in failure.” This was because the vast majority of those trained moved within a short period of time to other ministries and departments where their new-found skills were of little or no use.

“So we came up with a new strategy,” recalls Asaah. “We’d noticed that some farmers’ groups were doing great things, and we decided to work with them to establish a new way of providing training. That paved the way for the creation of a network of rural resource centres.”

One of the best developed is Twanoh Mixed Farming Common Initiative Group (MIFACIG) in Cameroon’s northwest region. Prior to the World Agroforestry Centre’s arrival on the scene in 1998, MIFACIG operated a small tree nursery and provided training in beekeeping and one or two other activities to local farmers. Since then, it has been transformed into a major training and plant-production enterprise.

“Our main purpose is to transmit knowledge to the surrounding communities,” explains Emmanuel Kuh, MIFACIG’s coordinator. “We have trained over 2500 farmers in a range of different activities and we now have 35 satellite nurseries run by community groups.”

Training programmes cover beekeeping, pig husbandry, propagation of indigenous fruit trees, marketing and much more. There is simple accommodation for 30 visitors and a large training hall. Sales of planting materials now bring in an income of around 10 million CFA francs (USD 20,000). Profits are reinvested in the centre, and help to pay for the eight-strong workforce.

A decade ago, the vast majority of farmers in the area earned most of their income from the sale of coffee, a cash crop whose price has fluctuated wildly. Thanks largely to the training provided by MIFACIG and the World Agroforestry Centre, many are now planting other crops, such as improved varieties of African plum and cola. They are no longer at the mercy of the coffee market, and many have increased their income.

By early 2009, there were six rural resource centres in the west and northwest, with four more in the process of being created. During recent years, the centres have benefited from their association with the Agricultural and Tree Products Program funded by the United States Department of Agriculture and managed by the World Agroforestry Centre. An independent midterm evaluation found that the programme was transforming the lives of some 8000 farmers and entrepreneurs. The rural resource centres have been central to the programme’s success.

Farmers lead the way in East Africa
In August 2008, Sarah Kawere, a smallholder in the Ugandan village of Namulaba, was recruited as a voluntary ‘farmer trainer’ by Jane Kugonza, a dissemination facilitator with the World Agroforestry Centre. In just two months, Sarah, a widow with four children, trained 20 local farmers how to grow better fodder crops and improve the nutrition of their dairy cattle. By using a highquality feed on her own farm, she also increased her milk production by two litres per cow per day.

Mrs Kawere is one of some 300 farmer trainers who are playing a crucial role in disseminating information which is helping smallholder farmers to improve their milk yields. “This is one of the really innovative aspects of our work with the East Africa Dairy Development Project,” explains World Agroforestry Centre scientist Steve Franzel. Funded by the Gates Foundation, and managed by Heifer international, the project aims to transform the lives of around 179,000 families in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda by doubling their dairy incomes over the next 10 years.

Among the problems facing the region’s smallholders are a lack of knowledge about efficient farming practices and weak market institutions. The decline in agriculture extension services in recent years is partly to blame, and the World Agroforestry Centre and its partners recognized that a new approach to disseminating information was needed.

When the project began, seven dissemination facilitators were recruited in the three countries. Their task is to train trainers such as Mrs Kawere. They provide them with information about suitable fodder and feeding strategies, and the trainees are then in a position to offer advice to other farmers. “The trainees are chosen by their peers, not on the basis of their expertise, but on their ability to communicate with their fellow farmers,” explains Franzel. Around 40% of the farmer trainers are women.

A number of factors motivate the trainers. They learn about the best farming practices, and therefore increase their own chances of getting better milk yields and a better income. Trainers are provided with seeds and planting material they give free of charge to farmers in their group, but which they can sell to outsiders. And farmer trainers like Mrs Kawere have noticed that their role as teachers improves their social status.

Farmer trainers have been used before, but their impact has never been properly documented. The East Africa Dairy Development Project will not only improve the welfare of around a million people; it will shed new light on the best ways of disseminating research on a large scale.

Aceh’s triumph over adversity
On 26 December 2004, Indonesia was struck by a Tsunami which killed some 200,000 people and displaced half a million. The worst-affected province was Aceh, which had already suffered from many years of armed conflict. The immediate impact on the environment was devastating. But the long-term implications were also troubling: displaced people swelled the local population of some areas, posing a serious threat to forests and farmland.

The Canadian International Development Agency responded by providing the funds for an agroforestry programme whose main aim was to establish ‘nurseries of excellence’ (NOEL). Managed by the World Agroforestry Centre and Winrock International, the two-year programme came to an end in April 2009. “It is a measure of the programme’s success that we achieved far more than we set out to do,” says Team Leader and Tree and Market Specialist James Roshetko from Winrock International / World Agroforestry Centre.

Roshetko and his colleagues worked with local farmers’ groups, Islamic groups and nongovernmental organizations to identify the species most favoured by farmers and provide training in nursery management, vegetative propagation and other techniques. The NOEL approach also involved collective action by communities to identify land rehabilitation objectives, and the setting up of work plans to achieve these.

By April 2009, 54 nurseries had been established. Of these, 24 were spontaneously established – they are known locally as susalan – by farmers’ groups which had observed the programme’s activities and seen the advantages of establishing their own nurseries.

Over 5200 individuals were directly trained by the NOEL programme, and just under 2500 benefited indirectly through informal training. During the programme, the nurseries raised over 550,000 seedlings – rubber, cocoa, durian, rambutan and mango being the most favoured species – with a commercial value of 6.4 billion Indonesian Rupiah (USD 660,000). Over 60 farmers trained by the programme are now providing training to other farmers.

As far as the availability of high quality germplasm is concerned, the situation is better than it was before the Tsunami. Throughout the years of conflict, most farmers got their seedlings in the neighbouring province of North Sumatra. Besides being expensive, these were of variable genetic quality. “Thanks to the NOEL programme, there’s now a network of nurseries producing excellent material at a price local people can afford,” says Roshetko.