So much to do...

This blog post is work related dense, so watch out!
It provides an update about the Farmer Innovation and MoFA innovation challenges!

Since the in country retreat and meeting, the objectives of my placement have shifted, expectantly. After months of innovation searching, the AEAs of the three districts that we’ve been working with in the Upper west (Lawra, Sissele East and Wa West), came for a workshop to share innovations, discuss findings and consider next steps. In short, the innovation challenge was all about addressing the issue of low adoption of MoFA technologies because we saw a lot of the time it was inappropriate. More importantly, it is about getting MoFA to see farmers in a new way, and to try new approaches and thus engage Agriculture extension agents to think more critically about the implications of their actions. Also at the workshop, there were a large amount of reasons why there is low adoption (its may not be inappropriate, but it could be because farmers don’t have a business mind). This just happens to tie into the Agriculture as a Business curriculum, the mainstay of our strategy in Agriculture in Ghana.

EWB Guide to the AAB Curriculum
The goal of the Curriculum
First you should know that the curriculum is really just a strategy. Meaning that it is not the goal itself but part of our work to accomplish two main things:
1. MoFA is an innovative, critical, learning organisation (it starts with the curriculum to get AEAs doing things in a different sort of way and for EWB and MoFA to have something tangible around which to criticise, learn from and innovate on!)
2. MoFA is shifting from the production oriented, technology focused to promoting agriculture as a business (we see this is all about strengthening farmer groups and doing business analysis and farm management with farmers)
Where the Curriculum is at overall
The curriculum can roughly be separated into two parts. The first half (cards #1 – 4) focus on farmer group development.

The second half of the curriculum (cards #5 – 8) focuses on business analysis as the cards follow a group through a project such as producing, trading or processing. It has been tested in bits and pieces. Also being tested is the curriculum in its entirety. The whole series of 8 cards have yet to be tried from start to finish. It is uncertain whether the process of going through all 8 cards will be effective for groups and how much AEAs will be flexible with skipping over certain cards. This process is focused on having the groups go through experiences that will develop the group overall – e.g. successful group project and successful group development.

Okay so that's the AAB tool in a nutshell. However, the AAB is not being used in the Upper West and has been more of a ground for other approaches. Suzanne wanted to address another problem, the problem of low adoption and out popped the farmer innovation and mofa innovation challenges which is working to un-root some of the assumptions that AEAs have about farmers as a way of learning about farmer realities in order to provide more relevant extension services. Challenging assumptions and hypothesis testing is something that EWB constantly talks about, but hasn't been addressed in the agric sector strategy. We are working to incorporate some of these ways of learning from testing hypothesis into the AAB.

Farmer Innovation Challenge Update

From the workshop that we had earlier this month, AEAs and MoFA staff got together to share the innovations, indigenous and MoFA adaptations they found and to discuss next steps. Some of the next steps are as follows:

Agric Extension Agent:

-Collect and share indigenous technologies and innovations amongst farmers
-Invite farmers to innovate upon and adapt technologies taught and demonstrate by MoFA
-Facilitate farmer problem solving
-Seek farmer feedback/input into projects and technologies
-Write proposals with farmer groups so they can pursue their own solutions

District Level:
-Give prizes to most innovative farmers on farmer’s day
-Give prizes to AEAs who collect the most farmer innovations
-Create forums for AEAs/farmers to share innovations and indigenous technologies
-Create forums for AEAs to share methods of facilitating farmer innovation/problem solving

Regional/National Level:
-Organize a national or regional wide innovation competition
-Collect promising farmer innovations and send to research

EWB Level:
-Publish a document of all innovations/indigenous technologies found
-Support AEAs and districts in their efforts to promote farmer innovations and generate farmer’s own solutions to the problems that thye face
-Generate farmer solutions on how to move from subsistence farmer to farmring as a business.

As mentioned, one of the discussions that came up when asked about why there is low adoption of technologies by farmers was because farmers don’t take farming as a business. In other words, “farmers don’t invest in their farms”. MoFA policies encourage farmer groups and market oriented approaches to farming. Linking farmers to markets is key which is why, I think, the AAB has really taken off the upper East because it is already something MoFA is promoting. However, we want to investigate further what this means, are farmers not adopting because the technologies are inappropriate or is it a behavioral problem related to business? What are some of the assumptions behind why farmers aren't investing in their farms? How can we test these assumptions, track what we've learned so we can provide more relevant solutions with farmers? The next steps for me is to look more specifically at elements of curriculum and work in ways we can test our assumptions and learn from them. The AAB is mostly a farmer learning tool, however we’re looking to involved more AEA/MoFA and EWB learning. When I was introduced to the idea of promoting Agriculture as a Business, I was immediately skeptical. I've come to realize that giving farmers tools to help them to make choices that can ultimately bring more income to their work is important, given the current capitalist system. But what I enjoy about the work that I'm doing with the Innovation Challenges goes beyond that, it's about coaching AEAs to ask more questions, challenging current ways of providing services to farmers and learn from our mistakes and successes.

What does this mean for the rest of my placement? Well, I’ve decided to specifically work on demonstration plots. Every year, AEAs run demonstrations with farmers on an improved crop variety. They demonstrate the MoFA what when and how’s of the improved crop. Currently, there aren’t any indicators or records for comparison of new crops to old crops that demonstrate the advantages/disadvantages of new vs. old. This means developing a card/tool for AEAs to test their assumptions about the demonstrations, to track what they’ve learned and to see, along with farmers, the results. Then, can AEAs and farmers make better judgment on what works and what is appropriate.

So that's what's going on with the Farmer Innovation Challenge.
There's also the..

MoFA Innovation Challenge


Program description
The MOFA Innovation Challenge is a project which provides some extra incentive and resources for district staff to innovate and experiment with creative ways of improving their work. Specifically, The MOFA Innovation Challenge is a competition between three districts in the Upper West Region to see which district can come out with the most innovative and creative solutions to the problems they face at the district. 2,000 Ghana cedis is available to all staff in the three districts for them to access if they would like to take up the innovation challenge and pilot an innovative approach/idea or project. No-cost innovations are also being encouraged and given special recognition.

The district which comes up with the most innovations, wins! A grand prize will be given to the District Director of the most innovative district. Individual prizes will also be given to staff in both districts whose innovations are particularly creative and useful. All innovations and the learnings generated will be shared across districts and sent to the regional and national level to potentially be scaled up.

Objective
The objective of this challenge is to encourage all MoFA staff at the district level to come up with innovative new ways of doing their jobs which will improve the relevancy, efficiency and effectiveness of MoFA work. It is important to note that the goal of this challenge is to encourage innovation and learning and therefore we are looking to support creative, new and experimental ideas. These kinds of projects/approaches may be of higher risk with uncertain outcomes, but the goal is to experiment and learn from our experience so that we build our capacity to innovate and drive change. There are no boundaries or limits to they types of innovations which staff can pursue – the aim is to think outside the box and learn from the innovation process.

Justification
For any organization to be effective it must be continuously learning from its experiences, identifying problems, finding innovative solutions and changing its approach. The people that are in the best position to learn, identify problems, innovate and drive change are the ones who experience the problems themselves. At the district level, it is district staff themselves who have the most clear idea of what the problems are within the district and what the most appropriate solutions to these problems might be. AEAs, DAOs and DDAs are in the best position to learn, innovate and drive change at the district.

Preliminary Results.

A total of 18 innovations were proposed by district staff from Sissala East, Wa West and Lawra. All innovations were assessed by a committee of staff at the district level and finally 8 innovations have been chosen for funding. A total of 5 no cost innovations are also being pursued.

LAWRA
The Lawra district has been awarded 1250 Ghana cedis to pursue the following innovations. 3 no cost innovations are also being implemented in the Lawra district which do not require any outside resources.

Disabled Farmer Demonstration: An AEA will do one of his demonstration plots with a blind farmer. The AEA will invite other disabled farmers to the field days, as well as other AEAs from the district. The goal is to encourage AEAs to work with disabled farmers and show that they can be successful recipients of packages.

Suggestion Box: The DDA will create a suggestion box to be placed in the district office where staff can anonymously offer feedback. The suggestions will be read at the montly meetings and a committee f staff will be created to deal with the issues that arise.

Weather Forecast Farmer Training: An AEA will hold a workshop to sensitize farmers in his operational area on the functioning of the new weather forecast gadgets which have been distributed to the districts. The goal is to gather farmer feedback and build trust and demand for weather reports. At the workshop farmers will also develop a system for disseminating the weather forecasts amongst themselves.

AEA Conceived Demonstration: An AEA will conduct a demonstration on a farming practice that he finds most pertinent to the farmers in his operational area and on a topic of which he has particular expertise. Specifically, the AEA will conduct a bee-keeping demonstration which is an income generating project which can be pursued during the dry season.

AEA Ideas for Demonstrations (NO COST): The district will collect AEA ideas for demonstration crops/practices which would be most relevant to the district and based upon AEA expertise. Dry season demonstration ideas will also be collected.

Outside Experts to the Field (NO COST): An AEA brings a range of experts, students, professionals and friends to the field so that they can share their own ideas with farmers, learn from farmers and generate a deeper appreciation for rural challenges.

Participatory Technology Development (NO COST): An AEA is working with a farmer to engineer a local injection pod – using local resources and expertise. The AEA and the farmer have partnered in a unique way to develop a technology together from the bottom-up.

So, I'm working hard to support AEAs and they take on their change projects!
I have a lot to do, and not much time to do it.
There are also bunch of other things I've been involved with. I have a friend who is starting a music shop in town, there is Sam's business, other projects I'm learning about and then my FARM (stay tuned for the big farm post... coming up soon!)

Questions welcome, bring 'em on!

Peace and love from the Upper West/Best side.