Sustainable Agriculture and Food: Four volume set (Earthscan Reference Collections)

From Pesticides to People 91

asked for disposable cameras to document pesticide abuse. Children were sent to
spy on their fathers and brothers and take photos of them handling pesticides care-
lessly or washing sprayers in creeks. Their presentations led to lively discussions.
The results of individual family studies showed that poisonings caused chronic ill-
health for men and their spouses, and ultimately jeopardized household financial
and social stability. Concern about the overall family vulnerability was apparent
during community meetings, when women exchanged harsh words with their hus-
bands over their agricultural practices that resulted in personal and household
exposure to toxic chemicals. The men responded that they could not grow crops
without pesticides and that the safer products were the most expensive. Commu-
nities called for help.
INIAP’s researchers and extensionists in Carchi had gained considerable expe-
rience with farmer participatory methodologies for technology development,
including community-led varietal development of late blight disease resistant pota-
toes. We know that such approaches can play an important role in enabling farm-
ers to acquire new knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for improving their
agriculture. INIAP built on existing relationships with Carchi communities to run
Farmer Field Schools (FFSs), a methodology recently introduced to the Andes. In
part, FFSs attempt to strengthen the position of farmers to counterbalance the
messages from pesticide salespeople. As one FFS graduate said (in Paredes, 2001):

Prior to the Field School coming here, we used to go to the pesticide shops to ask what

we should apply for a problem. Then the shopkeepers wanted to sell us the pesticides

that they could not sell to others, and they even changed the expiry date of the old

products. Now we know what we need and we do not accept what the shopkeepers want

to give us.

FFS have sought to challenge the most common of IPM paradigms that centres on
pesticide applications based on economic thresholds and transfer of single element
technologies within a framework of continuing pesticide use (Gallagher, 2000). In
contrast, FFS programmes propose group environmental learning on the princi-
ples of crop health and ecosystem management as an alternative to reliance on
curative measures to control pests. As a FFS graduate in Carchi noted (in Paredes,
2001):

When we talk about the insects [in the FFS] we learn that with the pesticides we kill

everything, and I always make a joke about inviting all the good insects to come out of

the field before we apply pesticides. Of course, it is a poison, and we kill everything. We

destroy nature when we do not have another option for producing potatoes.

In practice, the FFS methodology has broadened technical content beyond com-
mon understanding of IPM to a more holistic approach for improving plant and
soil health. The FFS methodology adapts to the diverse practical crop needs of
farmers, be they production, storage or commercialization. FFS ultimately aspires