In August I had the opportunity to conduct a study on the impact that demonstration plots were having on farming behavior change and technology adoption. My partner, the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute, requested the study to understand how the Soil Health Project they were implementing was creating change for farmers. They wanted to learn …»
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Market Facilitation is about fostering new relationships between businesses in agriculture. In sub-Saharan Africa much of the business that takes place happens “informally”. Informal business is any business activity that it is not overseen by the government. These activities are not taxed or regulated. They are also not legally binding. As the businessplace in …»  | Category: From The FieldHere is a little story about behaviour change and how conviction is essential in the process of technology adoption. This one is from my own field experience with weedicide application or what every farmer call «spraying». Spraying is a very important part of farming and it’s normally done right after ploughing or during planting …» 5 | Category: From The FieldI spent the past two days in rural communities in the Tolon/Kumbungu District of Northern Ghana. Both Kunguri, and Wantugu are communities that have farmer groups participating in an AGRA funded Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) project. The project aims to educate farmer groups on improved soil management practices by demonstrating various packages of …» 3 | Category: From The FieldIf a business in Canada wishes to expand, grow and succeed, a piece of frequent advices it will certainly get is captured in two words: market research. Essentially, know your customers and know your niche. Business planning experts will tell you never to underestimate the importance of market research. They will tell you that …» | Category: From The FieldI am working with input retailers in Yendi district to understand their challenges and facilitate change that is beneficial to their business and beneficial to farmers. Input retailers sell agriculture chemicals, seeds and/or fertilizers to farmers. Farmers have witnessed that the chemicals can have adverse affects on crops and the user’s health. One …» 3 | Category: From The FieldIn the constantly changing world of aid, many people will tell you that there is right now a clear trend towards value chain projects in development organisations around the planet. It is now assumed that investing in the private sector of emerging countries, particularly in agriculture, is the best way to help small-holder farmers …» Let me be completely honest. I’ve been quite skeptical of the effectiveness of the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems on the big value chains project I’m currently working on. My main observations involved an M&E officer at a field office screaming at field staff to fill in forms, go interview smallholder farmers and “reach …» 3 | Category: From The FieldFor the last 2 months I have been working with a small-scale nucleus farmer in Wa, in the Upper West region. To give a very general explanation, a nucleus farmer is someone who provides inputs to a certain number of outgrowers, who have to repay him in kind at the end of the harvest. 6 | Category: From The FieldSo back in March I wrote that “… the farmer’s success is tightly coupled to my success as an input dealer”. A great assertion, but in April I had a number of interactions with input dealers that started to reveal why this is more challenging in practice. Current bad situation: A common characterization of …» 2 | Category: From The Field |
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