Abstract

Many years have been spent in research and development for the generation of technologies for improving agriculture. However, some criticism has arisen in recent decades as how applicable these technologies are, or in terms of access to the information and its decoding for practical use for production communities (Carvalho, 2000). Research, Development and Extension (R,D&E) organisations are also unhappy with the level of adoption of the technologies generated, and have conducted several studies to determine reasons for low adoption. Australian and Brazilian dairy R,D&E organisations have developed different methods to improve the participation of production communities in the identification of research priorities, as well as in the design and development of research and adoption studies (SDP, 1998, Vilela, 2002). There are several methods to transmit new technologies or ideas to stakeholders, but are these methods the ones that production communities consider appropriate?

The objective of this paper is to present stakeholders’ suggestions about how to encourage the introduction of good ideas or technologies within production communities after the research is “ready”. The results are based on (Teixeira, 2003), published in the 1^st Australian Farming System Conference. The study was conducted in three regions, one in Australia, North Coast of New South Wales (NSW), and two in Brazil, St Rosa and Alto Jacuí regions, both in Rio Grande do Sul State. A broad range of stakeholders was involved in the study, incorporating all parts of the dairy industry (processors and other members of the supply chain as well as farmers) and R, D &E people. The study showed that interviewees want final tests of or improvements to new technologies in the regions where they are intended for use, with close participation of members of the production system in reaching final findings. In addition farmers and other industry stakeholders asked for more interactive and progressive communication of research findings. There are strong indications of a need to improve the social and organisational roles of R,D&E, mainly E, without neglecting the original role of technical advice.

Media summary

Australian and Brazilian Dairy industry stakeholders see the benefits of research, but want more communication of results and local testing of technology.

Keywords

Participatory approach, dairy, extension, research and development, communication, stakeholders.

Introduction

Science and extension

According to Jones (1982), the first modern agricultural advisory and instructional service was established in Ireland during the great potato famine of the mid 19^th century. The modern term “Extension” originated in England in 1866 as University Extension, which was taken up first by Cambridge and Oxford Universities, and later by other educational institutions in England and in other countries. The term “extension education” was first used in 1873 by Cambridge University to describe this particular educational innovation. The objective of University Extension was to take the educational advantages of universities to ordinary people.

A basic premise of extension was that agricultural technology would diffuse from more progressive farmers to most other farmers in a rural community. The paradigm of transfer-of-technology (TOT) assumed that scientists know best, new technology is better than old, technology is needed, innovators will transfer information to laggards and many people are not information seekers (Chamala, 1999). TOT excludes the additional considerations that arise when economic and social variables and their interactions with production technologies are considered. For instance, is a proposed new technology consistent with cultural practices and beliefs, and can the farmers afford to implement it? TOT also tends to exclude aspects of the physical environment: in some systems farmers also have longstanding traditional ecological knowledge or observational knowledge, that enables them to judge whether a new technology will work well in their biophysical environment (Scoones, 1994) The approach used under the TOT paradigm has been characterized as reductionist in nature. In the 1960s extension people were optimistic about extension, but had few proven results (Russell, 1989). According to Freire (1992) the TOT approach generated a passive audience of farmers without critical reaction or debate on what was being presented.

Shifting the extension paradigm from Educating to Learning

According to Frank (1999), farmers have adoption behaviour in harmony with their environments, respecting the social and economical influences. Their angle of vision is wide and they see things that may not have been considered by technologists. During the 1990s the view of educators was changing to encourage interaction, and stakeholders learning together. Extension people and academics redefined the meaning of the term extension as going beyond TOT (Coutts, 1994). Agricultural extension is changing and has been reinforced as a science (Coutts, 2000) to study the relations in the agricultural systems, mainly farmers, aiming technology towards sustained adoption. As a practical result, the behaviour of R, D&E is changing from push technology to interaction with the production system. It still focuses largely on farmers, and neglects other parts of the production and distribution system such as transport, processing, credit and marketing (Texeira et al. 2003).

Freire (1992) considered the term extension is inappropriate to describe the job of the technicians that work with farmers, aiming to improve the profitability and sustainability of their activities. The author analysed different meanings of the term extension stressing the main significance of extension as transmission, extending, one directional action, and cultural invasion. From this point of view, extension is more concerned with a mechanical act of transfer, in this case technologies, from person to person. Contemporary extension work is more related to interactions between the extension practitioner, farmers and community. Freire (1992) concluded that considering the aspects of reciprocity and interaction, the name Agricultural extension is incorrect and Agricultural communication should be used.

Extension is an effective instrument only when combined with others, such as research, provision of inputs, credit, and marketing. The return to investment in agricultural extension often is high when the actions of extension and research are well organised and integrate with the communities’ actors (Ban, 1996).

Australian and Brazilian dairy R,D&E organizations are aware of the evolution of approaches to extension. Part of their challenge is to apply new principles in the identification of research priorities. Some strategies have been developed in each country in an attempt to improve user participation in the R,D&E selection of actions.

Present strategies in Australian and Brazilian dairy R&D organisations

(a) Australia

The former Dairy Research and Development Corporation ( now Dairy Australia) developed the Regional Development Programs (RDP) in each State of the country to strengthen the link between research and the farming community. The Subtropical Dairy Program (SDP) is the RDP for northern Australia and was formed in 1995 (SDP, 1999). Within this a structure of seven Sub Regional Teams (SRTs) informs SDP and in turn DRDC of the farmers’ needs, and the types of research and development that are relevant to the region (SDP, 1998). The present strategy is based on farmers and R,D&E participants, headed by farmers, pointing to priorities that are almost solely related to technologies and on-farm issues. An evaluation in 2000 suggested, “SRTs members have to develop a system for collection and recording of ideas from the dairy farmer community” (Roberts, 2000). In addition the minutes of SRTs meetings demonstrated minimal participation by stakeholders other than farmers.

(b) Brazil

During the 1980s and 1990s milk production has increased in the west, northeast and south of the country. Embrapa Dairy has moved research staff to each of these areas creating research-extension offices. These local researchers are forming a link between the central research station and the regions, and are attempting to align identified technological needs with projects and actions (Vilela, 1999). The projects are cooperative contracts, and are based on needs identified in quantitative surveys of farmers (Emater, 1998, Embrapa, 1998). The methodologies do not include qualitative approaches, and do not involve participation, commitment and ownership of ideas. Decisions are normally made at government level or at a distance from regional production systems. Another approach is the Platform Project, to identify the restrictions on the development of dairy in three macro regions of the country (Vilela, 2002). It is based on panels of experts, few of whom are farmers. The initiative is important to understand and identify restrictions in macro regions of the country but the workshops do not permit inferences on micro regions’ issues. In 2001 a workshop with employees of Embrapa involved with the design of publications concluded that the major problems of Embrapa in scientific communication involved the identification of needs. The people in the workshop suggested that different groups of stakeholders should be involved (Ribeiro, 2001).

Results of a new strategy for Australian and Brazilian initiatives

Teixeira (2003) developed a research project to ensure a high level of stakeholder participation in the identification of priorities, drawing in stakeholders from throughout the dairy production and R, D& E systems. The strategy increases the understanding of production communities and involves a broad range of stakeholders to identify a comprehensive set of priorities for a dairy region and specifically to design R,D&E actions. The new strategy was tested in three regions, one in Australia, North Coast of New South Wales (NSW), and two in Brazil, St Rosa and Alto Jacuí regions, both in Rio Grande do Sul State. The testing of this strategy allows an assessment of stakeholder perceptions of past research and extension programs. Three points have particular interest for the present study. The following summary pools the results from the three case study regions, and so suppresses minor differences among them.

1 – Most of the individual opinions (given in semi-structured interviews) about positive contributions to the profitability of farm business in the three regions were related to production technologies. Pasture was the highest priority, and referred to better varieties of grass, better management of pasture rotation, tropical pastures, irrigation, fertilization and legumes for pasture. The other two production technologies were Genetics, in terms of use of artificial insemination, herd records, and embryo transference, and Nutrition was also important for the Australian case, expressed in terms of silage use, good balance of concentrate with pasture, and management of the feed gap between seasons. However, Farm Management was also raised in the three regions with comments such as ‘develop business management’, planning, scale, and increase labour productivity, integration with other activities and investing in capital improvements.

2- When the same interviewees were asked what they would do if they were managers of an R, D&E organisation, Pasture and Communication were the main priorities. Pasture was expressed in terms of better varieties of grass, research in pasture to reduce concentrate costs, cost-benefit studies to show the relation between investments in concentrate or pasture fertilization, in ways to fill the pasture gap, in persistent legumes, in pasture digestibility, in perennial grass with deep roots to need less irrigation, and in pasture management. Communication concentrated on better interaction of R,D&E with farmers, mainly through visiting each other, relaxing meetings (barbecues), and better channels of communication with R&D or group projects.

3 – There is a difference between the results of the individual interviews and subsequent focus group meetings held with a subset of those interviewed earlier in the study. The discussion in the focus group meetings did not converge towards production technologies. One of the questions in the focus group meetings was about identification of regional priorities, based on where participants would invest an imaginary A$ 100,000. The highest three priority issues for investment, in order of importance, were Communication, Finance, and Marketing.

Individual interviewees thus gave high value to production technologies¹ as something that helped the farm business. On the other hand, communication was the issue most stressed in part of the individual interviews, and in the focus group. The literature about communication, diffusion, and adoption of agricultural technologies is vast. Some authors are: (Ban, 1996, Carr, 2000, Chamala, 1999, Frank, 1998, Fliegel, 1993, Guerin, 1994, Havens, 1975, Lele U., 1997, Mathialagan, 1999, Rogers, 1995, Shulman, 2000, Vanclay, 2001). However, it conveys mostly the opinions of researchers. On the other hand, Freire’s (1992) suggestion that extension should challenge the interviewees’ thinking in a two-way communication between researcher or extension people and production community (Harmsen, 2002), suggests challenging the person’s mindset and stretching their perception of the future. The objective of the part of the study reported in this paper was to challenge participants to present alternatives of how they would transmit good ideas or new technologies to their production community. The question was asked of the interviewees in the three regions described in section 2.5 above.

Methodology

The research strategy presented at Figure 1 shows the methodology used in the three case studies, to ask interviewees a range of questions including how they would transmit good ideas or new technologies to their production community. A broad range of stakeholders was involved to obtain a variety of contributions from the main actors in each production community. The stages of the strategy are described below.

Community approach

The strategy started with the presentation of the objectives of the study to each sponsoring organization and selected key stakeholders. The participatory aspect of the action was stressed as an essential means to identify priorities for R,D&E. The next step in the approach was to work closely with a few selected farm families dealing with different activities, to familiarise and gain trust. This included staying on each farm and helping with farm and household tasks throughout the visit while conducting participant observation (McCall, 1969). According to Tattersall (2001) “…intimate contact through regular immersion in a given setting offers one of the best opportunities to research real world situations”. Another important objective of working in selected farms was to reduce the barriers between interviewer and interviewee, aiming to obtain their real thoughts about the subject of the study instead of what interviewees think the interviewer wants to hear.

Individual interviews

Purposive sampling was used to select, with the help of local extension people, the first farmers and other key stakeholders to interview. This stage of the strategy also included the first interviews with local extension people to identify any changes needed in parts of the interviews. Communication theory, systems theory, and academic extension expertise gave some support in the design of the semi-structured interviews (Babbie, 1998, Mason, 1996 ). The next interviewees were identified through snowball technique (Neuman, 1999, Crowder, nd ). Content analysis of the data was used to classify the information, including (for the purposes of this paper) how to present new ideas or technologies for the production community.

Figure 1: A Framework to collect opinions from a broad range of stakeholders

Results

On a number of occasions R,D&E people have commented that their audiences have whispered that the presentation subject (a technology) would not fit in the region concerned for some reasons, but these reasons were seldom discussed with the speaker. Similar observations arise in the literature. This study provides explicit opportunity for ensuring good communication. The results of this study show that no one in any of the three regions suggested a fast action, and no miracle solutions were presented. The results are outlined below for each of the three study regions:

Australia

Most of the 36 Australian interviewees made suggestions as to how to introduce good ideas or technologies to their production community. These have been organised by the authors into as a sequence of actions:

1^st Action – Identify in the production community the common problems before choosing an idea to present.

2^nd Action – Work on good ideas and look for high involvement of field agents and company representatives to make practical demonstrations or farm trials about the subject of interest, for focus farms.

3^rd Action – Encourage discussion groups through field days or other events where interested stakeholders are engaged in a process that enables them to think about new ways of farming. One of the main objectives is to improve confidence in each other.

4^th Action – Find a person to stimulate continuation of the achievement of keeping the people together around common interests.

Brazil Santa Rosa

Brazilian interviewees in St Rosa were very interested in having an Embrapa researcher (Texeira) holding a deep interview with them, and gave many contributions on how to introduce good ideas or technologies to their production community. Some actions could be ordered in a different way. The suggestions have been combined in the same way as the Australians responses:

1^st Action – Discuss where the industry in the region wants to go, identify the needs and ask appropriate organisations to cooperate,

2^nd Action – Transmit to farmers the global view of the dairy industry, explain the effects of technology, prepare the leaders, and introduce the ideas through them,

3^rd Action – Stimulate groups of farmers; discussion groups; extension groups; co-operative work among regional stakeholders; associations to discuss the production community issues, alternatives, and technologies; project / plan the future of the industry in the region; and help farmers to express their ideas.

4^th Action – Organise demonstrations in farms showing the positive and negative side of technologies. Invest in potential farmers, field days, visit other dairy communities, benchmark successful farmers, work on motivation and self esteem of farmers, and

5^th Action – Improve communication involving the production community and R&D organisations.

Brazil Alto Jacuí

In Alto Jacuí interviewees showed the same degree of interest as in Santa Rosa. The suggestions are presented in the same way as the two other regions. Notice that this region includes future generation in the process of learning and interaction with the production community.

1^st Action – Develop among farmers a long term vision for the dairy industry.

2^nd Action – Improve communication through the media (radio stations) during milking hours,

3^rd Action – Make more demonstrations of ideas or technologies in farms, showing the financial, the good, and the bad side of the ideas. Show scenarios for before and after the introduction of the ideas in a farm. Introduce the ideas and give time, stimulate discussion. Involve the agricultural college or even kids. Stimulate groups of farmers to visit each other, with the supervision of extension people that could deliver any doubts about the technologies to the right institutions. Hold field days, present alternatives to reduce cost, conduct benchmarking, pilot projects before presenting ideas to the whole production community.

4^th Action – Participative management of the regional dairy industry, organise smaller groups to discuss the ideas, and

5^th Action – Improve the motivation of farmers, plan more trips to other regions.

A surprise was that sets of steps to introduce good ideas, instead of simple ideas, were suggested. For example, the overlapping contributions of two farmers are combined into the following steps:

1^st Action – A visiting speaker should visit farms of the region before giving his (or her) presentation.

2^nd Action – Speaker presents ideas to stakeholders and then stays out of the meeting for about an hour,

3^rd Action - Facilitator encourages discussion among the audience members and makes notes during this hour,

4^th Action – The speaker returns, facilitator introduces the notes and encourages discussion with the speaker,

5^th Action – During the meeting speaker, facilitator, and farmers plan future actions in a selected farm,

6^th Action – Possible positive and negative results of the action should be shown at the meeting to the stakeholders, and

7^th Action - Discuss alternatives.

Conclusions

The literature shows that extension was born almost together with modern science, and it may be older than agricultural research and development. The strategy used in this study helped to drop the barriers that normally arise when research people have contact with farmers only during an interview. The results show that R,D&E is perceived in both countries to have done a useful job to help dairy farms to become profitable. Production technologies in nutrition, pasture, and genetics have assisted dairy farms, although there is also demand for other fields of research (Texeira et al 2003).

The suggestions of production communities are similar to those developed by R,D&E people. However, from the constant suggestions in terms of discussion groups, associations / organisations, and demonstration in farms it can be inferred that interviewees are asking for more interactive and progressive communication among themselves and with R,D&E people. This confirms Hamilton’s (1995) findings that R,D&E is not the main influence on farmers decision. Rather it is part of an interactive discussion, which would require resources presently devoted to R,D&E to be reallocated to community interaction rather than separate, specialised testing. Interviewees included the process of identification of needs in their views as to how to introduce good ideas. A sound option would be to involve students and trainees in tie process described in the present paper. That would help R,D&E personnel to understand production community issues, introduce new ideas through fresh minds, improve the capacity for collecting data, prepare the future generation of R, D&E workers, and increase the production of literature. At the same time practical results are delivered to the production communities

The final comment is that the results show that interviewees go beyond methods of diffusion of technologies in their suggestions for communication. Their suggestions assume an interactive model of extension. On the other hand, many cited actions are not the responsibility of R,D&E people alone. R,D&E can facilitate the defining of regional industry goals, or develop leadership, or stimulate association, but people from production communities need to be active participants in implementing their own ideas.

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¹ Production technologies are the ones related to production, such as pasture, nutrition, genetics, reproduction, herd management, health and hygiene