In praise of volunteer farmer trainers

During the past decade, funding for publicsector extension services in most developing countries has significantly declined, and government extension agents are no longer able to reach all farmers. Could volunteer farmer trainers help to fill the gap? If the experience in Rwanda is anything to go by, the answer is yes.

Since 2008, the East African Dairy Development (EADD) project has sought to double the incomes of 179,000 dairy farmers in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda by improving production and marketing. In Rwanda, the project has recruited and trained volunteer farmers to transmit information about livestock feed technologies to other farmers. According to Steven Franzel, leader of the World Agroforestry Centre’s research on rural advisory services, the volunteer farmer approach is changing the way we think about agricultural extension.

In early 2016, he and his colleagues published the findings of a study based on interviews with 86 volunteer farmer trainers from 17 dairy cooperative societies, a third of whom were women. Most had served as volunteer farmer trainers for an average of 42.5 months and trained an average of 24 farmers a month. The majority carried out their tasks on foot.

“Unlike government extension agents, volunteer farmers are not paid a salary, but they are motivated by a range of non-financial factors,” says Franzel. The study suggests that the main motivation for becoming a trainer was to gain knowledge and skills which could be used on the trainer’s own farm. This was followed by altruism, the anticipated benefits of the project and social factors. A breakdown of the social benefits showed that volunteer farmer trainers ranked gaining confidence highest, followed by increased social networks and improved social status. Just 12.8% of the volunteer farmer trainers reported obtaining financial benefits from the inputs and services associated with training.

The researchers stress that the volunteer farmer approach complements regular extension services run by governments; it does not replace it. Indeed, it is the government extension agents who provide support and training to the volunteer farmer trainers about innovations in the dairy sector.

The volunteer farmer trainer approach has been so effective in Rwanda that it has been taken up by other organizations, including four dairy cooperatives, two food crop cooperatives, two government organizations and one NGO. All had been influenced by their exposure to the EADD project. The organizations appreciated the fact that the approach allowed them to reach many more farmers than would otherwise be the case, while only slightly raising costs.

References

1. Franzel S, Degrande A, Kiptot E, Kirui J, Kugonza J,Preissing J, Simpson B. 2015. Farmer-to-farmer extension.Note 7. GFRAS Good Practice Notes for Extension and
   Advisory Services. Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services: Lindau, Switzerland. http://www.g-fras.org/en/download.html
2. Kiptot E, Franzel S. 2015. Farmer-to-farmer extension:Opportunities for enhancing performance of volunteerfarmer trainers in Kenya. Development in Practice 25:4.503-517
3. Kiptot E, Franzel S, Nzigamasabo P.B, Ruganirwa C. 2016.Farmer-to-farmer extension of livestock feed technologies in Rwanda: A survey of volunteer farmer trainers and organizations. ICRAF Working Paper No. 221. Nairobi,World Agroforestry Centre. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5716/WP16005.PDF
4. Kiptot E, Karuhanga M, Franzel S, Nzigamasabo PB. 2016.Volunteer farmer-trainer motivations in East Africa: Practical implications for enhancing farmer-to-farmer extension.
   International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability DOI:0.1080/14735903.2015.1137685