Great Gambian adventure: Monitoring our farmer field schools

Last Sunday Abdoulie, Alieu and I set out for trek, a monitoring visit to see the farmers we've been working with on the World Bank project, and to check some of the youth engagement activities run by our youth engagement and participation volunteers. In addition, as a lot of volunteers are finishing their contracts at the moment, we also did three final placement evaluations. I'll write about the youth engagement work separately.

We set out at 9:30am, thinking we'd have a nice amount of time in the afternoon to relax at Abdoulie's village. This was not to be as we ended up waiting 8 hours to get on the ferry from Banjul to Barra! However, once we were 'up-country' it was well worth it, seeing how well the farmer field schools have been doing was a real highlight for me.

The concept of the farmer field school (FFS) is to use a demonstration plot to share knowledge and information through practical training. Since our Training of Trainers session on modern agricultural techniques, the extension workers we trained have worked in a number of communities to set up these demonstration farm plots. Here, with groundnut seeds and fertiliser supplied by the project, selected farmers (women and younger farmers where possible) can prepare, sow and farm the land, learning new techniques from the extension workers. The farmers can then share the knowledge they've learned with their fellow growers association members or neighbours, apply the techniques to their own land, and - as an added extra - multiply the seeds we've given them for use next year.

Young farmer!

When we trained the extension workers I did a slot on monitoring and evaluation so that we could devise a way to test how much new knowledge and information the farmers were learning from the FFS. I devised a simple monitoring tool that the extension workers could use to interview the farmers before and after the training to see where their knowledge improved. Thankfully these forms have been working well, and in addition many of the the extension workers and cluster monitors had really understood the concept of keeping accurate notes, producing detailed records for us.

A very well organised cluster monitor

The visit gave us the chance to see first hand what the farmers had learned. It was incredible. The people we spoke to had really taken key concepts, and despite farming for years in some cases, had learned some really valuable new lessons. For example, many of the farmers we spoke to said they'd now learned the amount of fertiliser they needed to apply, working out the amount by calculating the size of the land and the quantity of seeds sown. Before hand, if they'd bought one whole bag of fertiliser they just assumed they had to put it all on. Pressure from other farmers exacerbated this, such was the belief that you had to use it all other farmers would tell them that if they used less they weren't doing it properly. Fertiliser is expensive. By learning to apply just what they need farmers will be saving thousands of dalasi every year, money which can be invested into other farming inputs or food for the family.

As we are looking to improve the quality of the groundnut and reduce the presence of mould and aflotoxin, we were relieved to hear that the farmers have learned important lessons about harvest and storing techniques that will lower the risk of mould.

We checked the rainfall patterns across the country, as this year the rainy season has been uncharacteristically dry! Usually there is a first rain when farmers prepare the land, and a second rain a few weeks later when the farmers sow. From then the rains continue regularly for germination to take place. This year, the rain disappeared after the seeds were sown and so there has been some crop failure. In one farm the seeds had not germinated at all and had started to go mouldy in the soil. Thankfully though, there was not too much damage, and now the rains have started to come more regularly, so all being well things should be ok - although those who waited for the rain and planted late will be hoping the rain continues into October. However, in Basse they have had more rain and the crops are more established so if the rains do continue into October they will be ruined. It's a tricky business!

Total crop failure here

Compared to healthy groundnuts in Basse

The farmers were really happy to see us, especially the women, and there was much dancing and singing in the fields during our visits! As I say, this trek was a real highlight for me - a long time out on the road, but absolutely fantastic to see the results of our interventions.