Sensitising service providers to farmer diversity as exemplified by approaches to better crop storage

Partners in Ghana:
Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Tamale
Northern Ghana Network for Development
Community Action Programme for Sustainable and Rural Development, Tamale
Opportunities Industrialisation Centres, Tamale
Centre for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD), Tamale.
University for Development Studies (UDS), Nyankpala

Problem:
To many African small-holders, food and financial security are often represented by stored grain and other commodities. These are subject to attack by a complex of insect pests, including the larger grain borer (LGB), an especially damaging species from Central America now endemic in many parts of SSA. LGB can be utterly devastating to stored grains, with infestation often reducing sound stock to dust in a relatively short time. Moreover because of its recent introduction to Africa and the sporadic nature of its outbreaks – over time and space – farmers (and extension staff) have frequently been taken by surprise. Improving grain-store pest management has thus been seen as a means to counter food insecurity and bolster the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Earlier research initiatives however focused on developing technical solutions to specific pest/crop-related problems, and paid less attention to distinguishing between the needs and priorities of different farmers, or to understanding service delivery system constraints.  Either or both of which could – and do – undermine the developmental impact of good science.

Research:
The specific focus of the initial research (1996 - 1999; 1999 - 2002) was driven by tackling the dire LGB situation, and included development of an LGB risk warning system, linked to targeted insecticide application (i.e. reducing the amount of pesticide applied per storage container), in recognition that pesticides are expensive and cost would inevitably deter many smallholder farmers from purchasing them. In line with growing acknowledgement of the failure of technology transfer approaches and the emergence of ideas that extension services should be more demand-led and client-focused, later research adopted a livelihoods approach and focused on increasing the understanding and responsiveness of extension service providers to the post-harvest needs of their diverse constituencies.

Achievements:

• The diversity response approach (DRA). An approach for use with extension service providers to advance their understanding of the complexity and diversity of rural communities and households, and to facilitate responsiveness to the correspondingly diverse needs and priorities of these constituencies. The DRA approach brings together sets of participatory and technical tools – the responsiveness toolbox (RTB) to improve and make more efficient the match of technologies to needs.
  
  
• Specific technology sets, including: the LGB risk warning system, targeted insecticide application, mud silo storage, cowpea solarisation, and use of diatomaceous earth, which are dealt with in detail in other dossiers.