| Property | Value |
| Name | Farmer Learning and the International Research Centres: Lessons from IRRI |
| Description | Morin, S., F. Palis, K. McAllister, A. Papag, and M. Magsumbol. 2001. Farmer Learning and the International Research Centres: Lessons from IRRI. IIED Gatekeeper Series Issue 96.The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is one of 16 centres in the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). IRRI has a huge mandate: to conduct research and training to improve the lives of rice producers and consumers, particularly those with low incomes. This broad mandate means that whilst IRRI generates knowledge and products such as improved pest management methods or new varieties and machinery, it is the role of extension workers from other organisations to promote and disseminate these to the farmers. This means that the dissemination of the research outputs is outside IRRI’s control. However, some IRRI researchers have recently developed ‘decision aids’ as a way for farmers to adopt and adapt technologies on a much wider scale than can be achieved through focused research projects alone. In this paper we highlight one of these innovative approaches, the development and promotion of the ‘no early spray’ (NES) technique in integrated pest management in Central Luzon, Philippines, and discuss its implications for farmer learning within the institutional culture of IRRI. The NES technique grew from research revealing that farmers’ belief that leaf folders caused yield-reducing damage in rice was incorrect. The research showed that in fact spraying for leaf folder is not necessary up to 40 days after transplanting. This simple message was tested by farmers in the Philippines, prompting them to conduct site specific research and to entirely cease spraying their fields for leaf folder when they found it to be true. These experiences suggest that decision aids work best when the decisions farmers are encouraged to take are not mandated or fixed, but prompted by the research process itself. The NES started out as a decision aid and, through farmer experimentation, turned into a learning tool. The success of NES indicates that decision aids offer ways to have impact and foster farmer learning at the farm level within the corporate culture of IRRI, and other similar International Agricultural Research Centres. |
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