3. Approaches to agroforestry technology evaluation
A recent paper by Mfiller and Scherr (in press) reviewed a number of methods
which have been used by extension projects to select initial 'best bet'
agroforestry interventions. In few cases are these technologies already fully tested and adapted locally. The premise of this paper is that, given this
situation, agroforestry extension projects will often - and should - have as
an important objective the improvement of extension recommendations
during the course of the project.
Outsiders (e.g., research institutions) may provide consultant expertise or
useful technical advice, but experience suggests that they often cannot be
counted upon to share project objectives, unless they are partners in a
long-term collaboration. They are also likely to be less committed to
location-specific technology adaptation. Thus, in order to assure that technology
monitoring and evaluation are focused closely on project and farmer
needs, they are best done by project staff in collaboration with the farmers.
The experience and methods discussed in this paper are directed at an
audience of technically trained extensionists and project-based researchers.
Later papers will review and discuss methods used for evaluating the
impact of agroforestry technology adoption and for economic analysts,
which are not covered here. Nor will the paper discuss methods for evaluating
extension effectiveness or efficiency.