Spreading the word: First local dissemination events

The first six local dissemination events were organized in Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso between May and June, in a transdisciplinary effort locally coordinated by the partner farmers’ organizations, with the support of FiBL.

Event in Niakhar, Senegal, organized by SustainSahel partner Agrisud

Dissemination event on the 4th June in the site of Sikasso, Mali

Dissemination event organized by AMSD in the region of Koulikoro, Mali

A total of six events were organized by the farmers’ organizations - two per country - in the sites of Ouarkhokh and Niakhar (Senegal), Koulikoro and Sikasso (Mali) and Yilou and Saria (Burkina Faso). Three additional events were organized in the framework of the collaboration between SustainSahel and three local NGOs: Agrisud in Senegal, AMSD in Mali and Tiipaalga in Burkina Faso, thus increasing the total number of events to nine.

Overall, the nine events counted a total of 816 participants, most of them local farmers, but also extension officers, researchers, students, traditional leaders, members of SustainSahel’s recently launched innovation platforms, and, of course, the representatives of farmers’ organizations.

Early start for a continuous learning process

SustainSahel’s dissemination strategy tries to break with the usual approach of leaving the sharing of the results to the last stage of the project’s lifetime. Starting the dissemination approach already in the second year of the project is expected to increase the acceptance of the project’s messages and allow for constant feedback from farmers - the end users of the disseminated technologies. This close and continuous interaction is expected to increase the chances for adoption and upscaling of the shared technologies in later stages.

An early start also enables a participatory process, where farmers have a voice in assessing the results of the on-farm and on-station research trials by visiting them and visually evaluating their performance. A direct link between the dissemination process and the ongoing discussions within the innovation platforms will also allow an in-depth discussion of the newly generated knowledge by the different stakeholders.

A cascading knowledge sharing approach

In each site, between 30 and 40 so called “lead farmers” are invited to the dissemination events, where they have a direct contact with researchers, extensionists and farmers running demonstration plots. Each lead farmer comes from a different village, and is expected to bring the new knowledge to their fellow farmers, thus spreading the word and sharing the new insights.

An assessment at the end of the project’s lifetime will allow to better understand how this knowledge flowed in the villages of lead farmers, as well as beyond them.

Further information

Weblinks

Tiipaalga.org: homepage

Agrisud.org: homepage

associationamsd.com: homepage

Written by: Fernando Sousa, WP8 leader at Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL