Authors:
Ngozi, S
, Mshenga, P
, Hillbur, P
and Kakuhenzire, R |
Abstract:
Participatory research approaches (PRA) are geared towards planning and conducting research
process with those people whose life-world and meaningful actions are under study. Thus, the
aim of the inquiry and the research questions develop out of the convergence of two
perspectives-that of science and of practice. It also implies that in the best case, both sides
benefit from the research process. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of PRA is under contestation
largely because of limited impact of research studies on communities. The study evaluated
efficiency and effectiveness of participatory research approaches (PRA) among smallholder
farmers in Babati district, Tanzania. In this study, efficiency was viewed as a ratio of output (in
terms of number of recipients who become aware of the promoted technologies and ended up
using the integrated technologies), to the costs of implementing the participatory research
approaches. On the other hand, effectiveness was defined as an ability of participatory research
approach to meet its key objectives in this case was reaching large number of farmers and
making farmers to adopt the technology in question.
Data on the PRA activities was collected from the organizations implementing agricultural
integrated innovations. Six approaches were evaluated: farmer research groups (FRGs), farmer
field schools (FFS), mother-baby trials (MBTs), on-farm demonstrations (OFDs), mobile
demonstration plots (MDPs) and coupon agro-inputs (CAIs) approaches. Data envelopment
analysis (DEA) was employed in which each participatory research approach was treated as a decision making unit (DMU).Two DEA models were estimated using the variable returns to
scale (VRS) assumption. The first model considered the number of farmers trained per
participatory approach as an output while the second model considered the proportion of
adopters as the output. The results revealed that in the first scenario, farmer research groups
approach had the highest efficiency (72 percent), followed by mother-baby trials whose
efficiency was 71 percent. In addition, on-farm demonstration plots had an efficiency of 67
percent, mobile demonstration plots 63 percent while the efficiency of farmer field schools and
coupon agro-inputs was 57 percent and 58 percent, respectively. In the second scenario, the
farmer research groups approach led with an efficiency score of 68 percent, followed by on-farm
demonstration plots with the efficiency of 60 percent. Coupon agro-inputs and mother-baby trials
had the efficiency of 52 percent while the efficiency of farmer field schools mobile
demonstration plots was 45 percent and 39 percent, respectively.
The results suggest that resources devoted in implementation of the PRAs under the study were
underutilized. This implies that there is still room to improve and optimize participatory
approaches and enhance their efficient in use for reaching t target farmers and making them
adopters of Integrated Agricultural Innovations. |
