Another interesting and important discussion topic. As I look at the comments to date, they remain mostly confined to the academic/research community and do not get to the final beneficiary of the scientific results. For the CIGAR this can be critical as the CIGAR is considerable isolated from the intended final beneficiaries. That is the primary clients for the CIGAR are the Host Country National Agriculture Research Systems (NARS), while the final beneficiaries are multitude of normally unnamed smallholder farmers, who are still one step removed from the CGIAR’s NARS clients. That would be the national agricultural extension program. These final beneficiaries usually have no direct access to the research results and cannot afford the referred technical journals mentioned as the primary product for the research.
Thus, while I think the CGIAR does an excellent job of basic research particularly regarding varietal improvement for many host countries, I do question how effectively the results can be utilized by the smallholder final beneficiaries. I think most of the varietal improvement in developing countries such as those in Sub Sahara Africa are facilitated by “collaborative” programs between the appropriate CGIAR center and the host NARS. However, the collaboration is supported by external funding to the CGIAR team to cover the operating costs. Thus, it becomes more a CGIAR effort than a fully collaborative effort. From a smallholder operational perspective, the varietal improvement program is the CGIAR most effective research intervention. The reason being it is a simple substitution for what smallholders are already doing, with limited, if any, additional labor required. There may be some substantial logistical requirements in getting newly released variety seed available to smallholder, and logistic can be a major hindrance in many host countries.
The problem comes when you get away from the varietal improvement effort and work with innovations with a labor or other higher operational requirement. Then the limits of small plot research, the basis of most agronomic analysis, becomes a problem. While small plot research does a tremendous job of determining the physical potential of a research innovations in the region it is undertaken and can produce high quality referred journal papers well appreciated by the academic/research community, it does not address the operational requirements, such as labor, necessary to extend the results across a smallholder community. It just assumes it is not a problem. However, labor can be highly limited in most smallholder communities as well as the dietary energy to fuel the labor. How often are the CGIAR’s non varietal improvement research innovations more labor intensive than what the smallholders are currently doing? The question is who within the CGIAR collaborative effort to assist smallholder farmers is responsible to:
Determine the labor requirements to extend the small plot research result across the smallholder farm.
If that labor is available to the smallholder producers, and
If not available, what are the rational compromises farmers make in adjusting the high-quality research results to their limited operational capacity.
Does this fall into an administrative void between the agronomists or other applied bio-scientists and the social scientists assisting small holder communities? Until this is recognized and addressed will the high quality CGIAR center research receive limited acceptance by the smallholder farmers? It is very interesting that the Baker/Hurd Yield Gap analysis started at IRRI some 40 years ago has never address labor as major contributor to the yield gap analysis. I think it would make a major difference and explain much of the yield gap and low level of research acceptance for the CGIAR quality research results.
The problem is exasperated by limited dietary energy available to most smallholder farmers resulting in research & extension attempting to compel smallholder farmers to exert up to twice their available dietary calories. It is interesting that we acknowledge that smallholder farmers are poor and hungry but never factor that as a major hindrance to their ability to take advantage to the quality research being done for their benefit. It is equally interesting that there is very little hard data on the calories available to poor hungry smallholders, let alone how that compares to the 4000 kcal/day needed for a full day of agronomic fieldwork. What little is available typically shows smallholder farmers have access to only about 2000 – 2500 kcal/day, barely providing the basic metabolism requirements, leaving little energy for field work such as the 300 kcal/hr. needed for basic manual land preparation. The result is to prolong periods of crop establishment against the declining yield potential associated with delayed crop establishment until it is no longer possible to meet family food security needs. This will again severely limit the usefulness of the high-quality research coming from the CGIAR centers and the collaborating NARSs, for much of agronomic research the effectiveness is time sensitive.
Mention is made of the MEL evaluation process. This needs to be review with care to make certain it is true evaluation process that guides future projects to better serve the beneficiaries with more effectively programs and not a propaganda tool to cover-up and promote failed programs as often appear to be the case. The concern is in both the criteria being included or excluded in an MEL evaluation and use of aggregate analysis vs percentage analysis. For example, how often do MEL analysis for agronomic programs include timing of field operations that can be highly visible and would pick up the labor constrains mentioned above, and then guide programs to facilitate smallholder access to contract mechanization that would expedite crop establishment, improve timing, compliance with research recommendations, yields, and enhance family food security? I have never seen it included. Looking at USAID MEL effort on reliance on producer organizations to assist smallholder, when you do an aggregate analysis, you come up with some very impressive numbers that only measures the massiveness of the total program, while saying little or nothing about effectiveness or appreciation of the effort to the beneficiaries. However, if shift the same data to percent such as:
Percent of potential beneficiaries actively participating,
percent of the community market share,
percent of side selling, or
percent increase in family income,
the impact on the individuals and communities can be trivial. In this case the MEL will represent a little bit of monitoring, but no real evaluation, and the only learning is “how to deceive the underwriting taxpayers”. However, such an MEL analysis assures the continuation and entrenchment of programs the beneficiaries are avoiding like the black plague or perhaps in today’s context COVID-19. This would really be a major disservice the beneficiaries, while assuring the implementer future opportunities.
Please allow me to support the above concerns with some webpages from the Smallholder Agriculture website I manage.
RE: How to evaluate science, technology and innovation in a development context?
Another interesting and important discussion topic. As I look at the comments to date, they remain mostly confined to the academic/research community and do not get to the final beneficiary of the scientific results. For the CIGAR this can be critical as the CIGAR is considerable isolated from the intended final beneficiaries. That is the primary clients for the CIGAR are the Host Country National Agriculture Research Systems (NARS), while the final beneficiaries are multitude of normally unnamed smallholder farmers, who are still one step removed from the CGIAR’s NARS clients. That would be the national agricultural extension program. These final beneficiaries usually have no direct access to the research results and cannot afford the referred technical journals mentioned as the primary product for the research.
Thus, while I think the CGIAR does an excellent job of basic research particularly regarding varietal improvement for many host countries, I do question how effectively the results can be utilized by the smallholder final beneficiaries. I think most of the varietal improvement in developing countries such as those in Sub Sahara Africa are facilitated by “collaborative” programs between the appropriate CGIAR center and the host NARS. However, the collaboration is supported by external funding to the CGIAR team to cover the operating costs. Thus, it becomes more a CGIAR effort than a fully collaborative effort. From a smallholder operational perspective, the varietal improvement program is the CGIAR most effective research intervention. The reason being it is a simple substitution for what smallholders are already doing, with limited, if any, additional labor required. There may be some substantial logistical requirements in getting newly released variety seed available to smallholder, and logistic can be a major hindrance in many host countries.
The problem comes when you get away from the varietal improvement effort and work with innovations with a labor or other higher operational requirement. Then the limits of small plot research, the basis of most agronomic analysis, becomes a problem. While small plot research does a tremendous job of determining the physical potential of a research innovations in the region it is undertaken and can produce high quality referred journal papers well appreciated by the academic/research community, it does not address the operational requirements, such as labor, necessary to extend the results across a smallholder community. It just assumes it is not a problem. However, labor can be highly limited in most smallholder communities as well as the dietary energy to fuel the labor. How often are the CGIAR’s non varietal improvement research innovations more labor intensive than what the smallholders are currently doing? The question is who within the CGIAR collaborative effort to assist smallholder farmers is responsible to:
Does this fall into an administrative void between the agronomists or other applied bio-scientists and the social scientists assisting small holder communities? Until this is recognized and addressed will the high quality CGIAR center research receive limited acceptance by the smallholder farmers? It is very interesting that the Baker/Hurd Yield Gap analysis started at IRRI some 40 years ago has never address labor as major contributor to the yield gap analysis. I think it would make a major difference and explain much of the yield gap and low level of research acceptance for the CGIAR quality research results.
The problem is exasperated by limited dietary energy available to most smallholder farmers resulting in research & extension attempting to compel smallholder farmers to exert up to twice their available dietary calories. It is interesting that we acknowledge that smallholder farmers are poor and hungry but never factor that as a major hindrance to their ability to take advantage to the quality research being done for their benefit. It is equally interesting that there is very little hard data on the calories available to poor hungry smallholders, let alone how that compares to the 4000 kcal/day needed for a full day of agronomic fieldwork. What little is available typically shows smallholder farmers have access to only about 2000 – 2500 kcal/day, barely providing the basic metabolism requirements, leaving little energy for field work such as the 300 kcal/hr. needed for basic manual land preparation. The result is to prolong periods of crop establishment against the declining yield potential associated with delayed crop establishment until it is no longer possible to meet family food security needs. This will again severely limit the usefulness of the high-quality research coming from the CGIAR centers and the collaborating NARSs, for much of agronomic research the effectiveness is time sensitive.
Mention is made of the MEL evaluation process. This needs to be review with care to make certain it is true evaluation process that guides future projects to better serve the beneficiaries with more effectively programs and not a propaganda tool to cover-up and promote failed programs as often appear to be the case. The concern is in both the criteria being included or excluded in an MEL evaluation and use of aggregate analysis vs percentage analysis. For example, how often do MEL analysis for agronomic programs include timing of field operations that can be highly visible and would pick up the labor constrains mentioned above, and then guide programs to facilitate smallholder access to contract mechanization that would expedite crop establishment, improve timing, compliance with research recommendations, yields, and enhance family food security? I have never seen it included. Looking at USAID MEL effort on reliance on producer organizations to assist smallholder, when you do an aggregate analysis, you come up with some very impressive numbers that only measures the massiveness of the total program, while saying little or nothing about effectiveness or appreciation of the effort to the beneficiaries. However, if shift the same data to percent such as:
the impact on the individuals and communities can be trivial. In this case the MEL will represent a little bit of monitoring, but no real evaluation, and the only learning is “how to deceive the underwriting taxpayers”. However, such an MEL analysis assures the continuation and entrenchment of programs the beneficiaries are avoiding like the black plague or perhaps in today’s context COVID-19. This would really be a major disservice the beneficiaries, while assuring the implementer future opportunities.
Please allow me to support the above concerns with some webpages from the Smallholder Agriculture website I manage.
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/
For operational limits and dietary energy balance:
https://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/OperationalFeasibility.pdf
https://agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/calorie-energy-balance-risk-averse-or-hunger-exhasution/
https://agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/ethiopia-diet-analysis/
For MEL
https://agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/mel-impressive-numbers-but-of-what-purpose-deceiving-the-tax-paying-public/
https://agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/appeasement-reporting-in-development-projects-satisfying-donors-at-the-expense-of-beneficiaries/
https://agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/perpetuating-cooperatives-deceptivedishonest-spin-reporting/
https://agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/request-for-information-basic-business-parameters/
https://agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/vulnerability-for-class-action-litigation-a-whistleblowers-brief/
Thank you
Dick Tinsley
Prof. Emeritus,
Soil & Crops Sciences
Colorado State University