Participatory farming systems analysis – An innovative tool for designing livelihood interventions

Abstract

Participatory Farm Management methods are simple tools which enable farmers working on their own, or with research or extension workers, to explore their activities and the use and production of associated resources. The methods were developed by working closely with small-scale farmers in developing countries and have been successfully used in many countries for a range of purposes in research, extension and development. This document describes each of the methods i.e. Participatory Budgets, Scored Causal Diagrams, Resource Allocation Maps, Resource Flow Diagrams, and then provides examples of how they have been used. The uses include for: participatory extension and development (introducing new practices and considering how they compare to existing practices in terms of activities involved, timing, and the use and production of resources); needs assessment (identifying and understanding problems farmers face); assessing the suitability of potential interventions (establishing how appropriate interventions are for different farmers and systems and how they can be adapted before starting on-farm research or demonstrations); conducting on-farm participatory research (planning, recording and analysing results); adoption studies (clarifying why farmers have or have not adopted practices and what impact they have had) and; studying farmers’ practices and systems (e.g. research on farmers activities and use and production of resources). Recently there has been increasing interest in the application of participatory methods for larger scale studies and statistically based data analysis. The last section of the document considers this and presents some examples of scaling-up and analysis.