PROLINNOVA South Africa
PROmoting
Local INNOVAtion Ecologically-Oriented Agriculture
and Natural Resource Management
Background
PROLINNOVA
South Africa is an initiative to enhance networks, build capacity,
and actively engage civil society and government in promoting farmer
innovation www.prolinnova.net
A
Core Team is formed comprising the Farmer Support Group (lead agency),
MIDNET (secretariat), ARC, and PELUM South Africa. The initiative
is part of an international endeavour involving various countries
in Africa and Asia. The programme is funded by DGIS, CTA and IFAD,
and facilitated by ETC Ecoculture, IIRR and Swiss Centre for Agricultural
Extension.
| A
farmer innovator is a farmer or land user who
innovates at his/her own initiative. Who tries out and tests
new methods of resource conservation for production, often using
ideas from various sources, often curious, proud, and willing
to take risks. Not ‘model farmers’ groomed by projects |
Progress
The
Core Team is operational. They give strategic direction to the programme.
They communicate mainly through e-mail, and bi-monthly tele-conferences.
Special face-to-face meetings will be held when feasible, and linked
to field activities to enhance networking and joint learning.
Hannes
de Villiers (Farming Systems Research Unit KZN Department of Agriculture)
and Vusumuzi Sithole (Farmer Support Group) successfully attended
a two-week Training of Trainers in Participatory Innovation Development
held at IIRR in the Philippines, and will report back on their experiences.
A training
of three days is scheduled for early Sept, followed by site studies,
and feedback workshop in late Oct. Due to the limited resources
for the first year it is agreed to take KwaZulu-Natal as first pilot
area. Pilot studies will focus on identifying, describing and recording
farmer innovation.
An
open invitation will be circulated among relevant stakeholders to
attend the training and undertake pilot studies. Basic costs of
the training for stakeholders in PID are covered by PROLINNOVA.
Travel and accommodation will be participants’ own contribution.
The
Core Team will select trainees based on motivations submitted. Broad
representation is ensured by specifying the number of trainees per
stakeholder category: Department Agriculture’s extension and research
staff (10), NGO’s in agriculture and natural resources management
(10). Of these trainees, two thirds would come from KZN (7) and
one third from outside the province (3). 5 seats are reserved for
‘special cases’ who don’t fall in above categories such as Universities,
private sector etc. (3 from KZN and 2 from outside)
| TIME
FRAMES |
| 6
July |
Feedback
workshop by trainers in PID |
| Early
September |
Training
of stakeholders in PID |
| September-October |
Pilot
studies in KZN |
| Late
October |
Feedback
workshop by trainees |
| November |
National
stakeholder workshop |
| December |
Country
report for year 1 |
The
above processes will result in a National stakeholders workshop
to share information on work to date, identify issues and challenges,
and develop a three-year action plan for PROLINNOVA-SA. The second
year will carry this process into two other provinces, with stakeholders
in KZN expected to continue their efforts.
PROLINNOVA
International requires that all Country Programmes contribute 40%
of the total budget towards the programme. This can be done in cash
and in kind, for instance through use of facilities, time spent,
and additional fundraising. There is funding to continue in year
2 provided our progress meets PROLINNOVA International’s requirementsy.
However, we will need to look at own contributions and fundraising.
All
interested organisations are invited to engage in and give feedback
on where they have seen farmer innovation that can inform pilot
studies. Pilot studies could also focus on specific themes, such
as:
- How
AIDS-affected households are adapting to farming challenges
- How
farmers are innovating in enterprise development
-
Local innovation refers to the process by which people in
a given social group develop new and better ways of doing
things - using their own resources and on their own initiative,
without pressure or direct support from formal research
or development agents.
- The
outcome of this process are local innovations, e.g. new
farming techniques or new ways of organising work.
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