Daniel Machin, Mandy Dearden and Peter Lacey

Preferred presentation format: Non Refereed Paper

Affiliation(s): Department of Fisheries, Western Australia

Presenter(s) Details:

Title: Daniel Machin

Position: Senior Aquaculture Development Officer

Organisation: Department of Fisheries WA

Contact email: dmachin@fish.wa.gov.au

Contact phone: (08) 9482 7201

Keywords: Strategic, extension, campaign, marron, aquaculture.

Since the inception of the Department of Fisheries, Aquaculture Program (AP) in 1994, the participation rate of marron farmers in Western Australia has grown 353%. However, the average marron farm production remains low at approximately 300kg/ha/yr, compared to industry best practice of 2000kg/ha/yr. From this analysis the traditional extension model used for marron farmers has been effective only in changing the aspirations of farmers, as such, places the industries annual production target of 200t by 2010, at threat. As such the AP required a new extension model.

Strategic Extension Campaigns (SEC) provide a holistic participatory approach to extension delivery with an emphasis on effectiveness and efficiency in service delivery. SEC achieve this by differentiating farmers into homogenous groups and applying an appropriate extension services to them. The SEC methods, as developed by Ronny Adhikarya¹, consists of 10 operational components, that ensure activities are carried out in a systematic, sequential and process-orientated manner. The first SEC for the WA marron aquaculture sector was focussed on new entrants and involved implementing a roadshow of two workshops (A & B) aimed at assisting new entrants to take action to determine whether or not marron aquaculture was feasible for them.

The two resultant marron SEC workshops appear to be a success with the participants stating that their expectations were met and that the workshop had resulted in them increasing their knowledge and taking specific actions. In the long term, the actual effectiveness are more difficult to determine. Participants indicated that they planned to implement a total of 42-57 ha of marron ponds in the next three years. In this case, the workshop series will have assisted in achieving nearly 56 to 76% of production required to meet the industry target of 200t, assuming that all the farms are managed at industry best practice and can achieve 2000kg/ha/yr. This is being monitored as part of the SEC’s longer term evaluation.

Key learning points:

Strategic extension campaigns bring rigour, effectiveness and efficiency to extension programs.

Using a participatory planning approach to extension programs is a key to achieving maximum uptake of extension messages

Monitoring and evaluation of components of the SEC leads to better targeted and more effective extension messages

¹ R. Adhikarya, Strategic extension campaign: A participatory-orientated method of agricultural extension, Rome, Italy: FAO/United Nations, 1994.