Some 53 farmers from six countries exchanged experiences and knowledge through story telling during the Farmers’ Conference held at ICARDA Headquarters in Aleppo, 4-8 May. The conference was supported by the Knowledge Sharing Project of ICT-KM.
Farmers from Syria, Algeria, Iran, Jordan, Egypt and Eritrea attended the first Farmer’s Conference organized by the Barley Research Program of the BIGM.
At the inaugural ceremony of the conference, Dr Salvatore Ceccarelli, a Consultant with the Barley Research Program, welcomed the participants. He said that the Farmer’s Conference, the first of its kind to be organized, has been organized as a joint activity among different partners. The objective of the conference is to bring farmers from different countries together to share their experiences and learn from each other. It is also an opportunity for the farmers to visit a research center like ICARDA, he said.
Dr Kamel Shideed, Director SEPR, welcomed the participants on behalf of the Director General. He described the conference as a great opportunity for the farmers as well as the researchers. The conference will help farmers and scientists exchange knowledge and experiences. Apart from these benefits, this meeting will expand regional integration and he hoped that the bilateral interaction will continue beyond the conference.
Ms Mariam Rahmanian from CENESTA, a non governmental organization based in Iran, said that it is a ground breaking conference. “The conference establishes that ICARDA takes farmers seriously and gives them importance in its research activities. Some of the farmers would not have seen a research center and the conference gives them an opportunity to visit an international center and interact with scientists,” she said.
Dr Adnan Al Yassin, Director of the Dry Land Research Program of National Centre for Agricultural Research and Extension (NCARE), Jordan thanked ICARDA for organizing the conference. He said that Jordanian farmers involved in the participatory plant breeding program and attending the conference would benefit from sharing their experiences with farmers from other countries in the dry areas.
Dr Mahmoud Solh, Director General, met the participants during one of the sessions and heard their experiences about participatory plant breeding.
During the next four days the participants visited ICARDA facilities and farmer’s field in Souran, about 100 km South of ICARDA where they interacted with local farmers. Each day the farmers had sessions devoted to story telling, which gave them an opportunity to narrate their own experiences and learn from other farmers.
Dr Stefania Grando, Principal Barley Breeder, said the conference achieved its objectives of collecting and consolidating farmers’ knowledge, which will help scientists in better targeting their research to address farmers’ needs. Also, the conference was successful in establishing linkages between national level networks of barley farmers in these six countries.
The participatory barley breeding program was first implemented in Syria in 1997 and the model and concepts were gradually applied in other countries.
Source: ICARDA
May 27, 2008 at 8:51 am
When organizing the Farmers’ Conference we were looking for a format that could facilitate the exchange of information among farmers from different countries. We set up a multi-criteria matrix to evaluate a range of methods and tools that best fit our aims and the audience we were addressing, at different stages of the conference organization (before, during and after the conference). Story telling worked out as the best method, tool and overarching frame for the conference since story telling is a common ‘tool’ farmers use to enrich any discussion and get their message across.
Story telling seemed to be flexible enough to accommodate any issues the participants would select as topics of discussion at the conference, and, at the same time, it seemed more informal than conventional presentations. Moreover, story telling seemed appropriate for the documentation of the conference. Stories can easily be reproduced in audio and written texts and more importantly, they lend themselves to oral transmission. Since local knowledge has traditionally been spread by word of mouth from farmers to farmers we were particularly happy the information shared at the conference could be exchanged in the form of stories.
Storytelling proofed an effective framework throughout the project. During the buildup towards the conference the local organizers ran through a consultation process with the communities of the farmer delegation that attended the conference. This worked particularly well with the team from Iran that was able to collect a range of stories reflecting the local knowledge of their home community. When consulted about the choice of informal story telling as a presentation method for the conference the farmers from Syria approved and encouraged us since, as they said, it would make them feel at ease.
“Stories were a useful format to share information. They are easy to understand, they include issues of interest to farmers about agriculture and they can increase the skills of those who work in collaboration with farmers” Comments by Egyptian participants on the last day of the conference.
May 27, 2008 at 8:53 am
“We learnt a lot from the exchange of information among various countries and from meeting with people coming from different traditions” – Algerian participants.
“The most important things I have learnt from the conference is that some problems are global (drought, cost increases..) and the solutions are local. Government policies tend to simplify while farmers need to diversify. Self-reliance can require short-term sacrifice in order to make long term investments” – a French participant.
“One suggestion is to ask the participating farmers to organize similar (if more informal) conference where they live” – a French participant.
“We learnt that farmers’ participation has an important role in decision making. We learnt that the use of local varieties (landraces) in different conditions -such as drought or extreme cold- is very important. We also learnt that the use of local knowledge is important when combined with useful and appropriate modern technologies ” – Iranian participants.
“We learnt that agriculture is an important sector so if we use it in the right way we will change our life and achieve food security” – Eritrean participants.
“One suggestion for improvement of the conference is to invite more NARS representatives in order to facilitate the institutionalization of PPB and make them more aware of the importance of farmers’ knowledge”- an Italian participant.
May 27, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Alessandra mentioned that in planning the conference they were “looking for a format that could facilitate the exchange of information among farmers from different countries”…
…but what i want to know is whether the storytelling approach was deemed as a useful way of understanding farmer perspectives, needs and knowledge by the researchers there?
Often researchers have very strict criteria about knowledge and may feel that stories are not a credible form of knowledge which may be used in their research.
How did/could this exercise help to bring farmer knowledge into the research process?