Sustainable Agriculture Extension Manual

Farmer visits

Farmer visits involve a group of farmers visiting other farmers within the same locality (or farther away) in order to share information about specific technologies or ideas. If done after a training course (as described below), the main aim of the visit may be to enable farmers see the items taught during the course actually being used. The method is particularly useful to build farmers' confidence and to establish farmer networks. The saying that "One who doesn't travel thinks his mother is the best cook" best captures the purpose.

Farmer visits are often part of a broader extension programme. They are useful in community-based extension efforts (see the sections on Group extension and Participatory technology development) or as part of regular extension activities. Farmer visits may be organized by an outside group such as the extension service or an NGO, or by the farmers themselves.

Advantages

• Farmers learn by seeing and doing. The farmers will see the technology being used, and may adopt it easily.
• Farmers tend to believe other farmers, so the spread of skills and ideas is much faster than through conventional extension.
• Seeing successful examples motivates the visiting farmers to try to do better themselves.
• Visits help build relationships and networking among farmers.
• The visits build the confidence of the farmers hosting the demonstration.
• The visitors can see and learn many things other than the specific technology they came to see.

Disadvantages

• The costs for training (training materials, resource persons and venue) and transport for the field visit may be high.
• Farmers may be unable to bear some of the costs.
• Farmers may hesitate to share their experiences with others.

Organizing a field visit

1. You may already be familiar with the specific socio-economic culture and environment where both communities live. If not, you can use participatory appraisal methods to study them. This helps to identify the farmers' needs, problems and resources in each area.

2. Plan a training course and develop training materials relevant to the needs identified.

3. Find out the farmers' opinion on when to carry out the course and visit. See the "Do's and Don'ts" box at the end of this section for some things to consider.

4. Invite farmers to participate in the course and the visit. As a way of showing their commitment, participants should be encouraged to contribute in kind or in cash. However, contributions should not be forced, and each case should be treated differently.

5. Carry out the training. This should be simple and short, and focus on the two or three main things that the visitors will see during the field visit.

6. Implement the visit. Ensure that the visit's objectives are clear to all concerned: both guests and hosts. As far as possible, the NGO staff member or extension worker should keep in the background, allowing the host farmers to describe their experiences, and the visitors to ask questions about results and problems.

7. Immediately after the trip, get feedback on the visit from the participants: on both the logistics and what they have learned. Together with the participants, identify ideas or techniques they can try out. Where necessary, suggest modifications to the techniques to suit the local conditions. Encourage the participants to discuss the technology with others so as to avoid misunderstandings when trying to adopt the technology. For example, one farmer adopted agroforestry and mulching without

consulting her husband. He uprooted her trees because he wanted to grow vanilla instead.

8. Provide information and support to farmers as they try out the new techniques.

9. After some time, evaluate the results to find out whether the techniques have been adopted. If yes, which ones have they adopted? If not, why not?

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