100 Participatory Processes
(iii) Incentives. As with any new paradigm, professionals who innovate in the farmer-
first mode risk being marginalized. In the short term, the safest route to promotion
will often seem to be work on-station not on-farm; on irrigated agriculture, not
rainfed (and least of all on unreliable rainfed); on a single commodity, not complex
combinations; on industrial, commercial and major cereal crops not low status sub-
sistence food crops; with quick maturing annuals not slow maturing perennials like
shrubs and trees; and with validation through standard experimental design not
farmers’ adoption. Nor does improving complex, diverse and risk-prone (CDR)
farming lend itself to the statistical testing methods taught in textbooks, involving
as it often does complex and multiple simultaneous change, for example, agrofor-
estry combined with water harvesting, growing fish with rainfed rice, home gar-
dening with several canopies, or the creation and exploitation of protected micro-
environments in semi-arid conditions. More papers can be produced more reliably
by using conventional methods on conventional crops in conventional environ-
ments, where there is already a good information base, than by using unconven-
tional methods on unconventional agricultural practices in unconventional
environments. Where promotions boards judge candidates only by adherence to
standard methods, or numbers of publications, rather than farmers’ adoption, then
pioneers in farmer-first modes will not do as well as their less innovative colleagues.
The rapid transfer of agricultural research staff poses a further problem espe-
cially in sub-Saharan Africa. The costs in lost continuity and effectiveness in for-
mal on-station research are well known. Less well recognized is the way in which
rapid turnover reduces incentives for staff to build up relations with farmers, and
undermines farmers’ confidence in them.
The practical implications of these obstacles are to develop enabling condi-
tions and incentives. The several forms these can take include the following:
- assessing research staff less on publications, and extension staff less on the
achievement of targets; and both more on the demands and searches they initi-
ate on behalf of farmers, on farmers’ interest and innovation and on adoption
and spread of technology; - rewarding those who pioneer and write about new methods. Until recently,
farmer-first research methods were not much the subject of articles in the
harder scientific journals, but as the summer 1988 issue of Experimental Agri-
culture (Farrington, 1988) has shown, this is changing. As scientists come to
realize that they can publish articles about their methods and experiences, and
that these bring national and international recognition, publishing disincen-
tives should not just disappear but be reversed; - ensuring more continuity for scientists in field posts. This may be difficult for
many reasons. Fortunately, where lack of staff continuity is endemic, experi-
menting farmers and local organizations may be able, more and more, to pro-
vide their own continuity; - networking between farmer-first researchers, providing mutual support and
recognition.