Step 1. Gaining the confidence of
farmer experimenters
We started by bringing together interested
farming communities and a team of local
researchers and extension staff. Farmers
outlined their problems and experiences,
researchers explained some results that they
thought could help address the farmers’
Restoring Soil Fertility in the
Highlands of East Africa through
Participatory Research
A collaborative
effort between
AHI, EARO and
TSBF in Areka,
Ethiopia, is
looking into the
rehabilitation of
degraded arable
lands on the
verge of
falling out of
production.
needs, and a farmer research group decided
what they wished to test in the first season.
Invariably, they asked to evaluate new
varieties of the crops they knew because—
as they later explained—they thought this
the surest way to get something out of a
relationship that experience taught them
could be a short-term one!
After a couple of seasons, these farmers
were multiplying seed of some new variet-ies they had selected, passing seed on to
others, and had visited more distant research
and demonstration sites to select other
technologies for testing. By this time, the
participants were discussing ideas for
tackling their more serious, long-term
problem—declining soil fertility.