Message 14: Surapol Chandrapatya

Suraphol Chandrapatya provides some cases from experiences working as a project leader for the "ASIALAND Network: Management of sloping lands for sustainable agriculture project" during 2001-2004. They revealed that lower participation from female farmers in meetings and workshops arose due to their other commitments to their families.

Dear All,

My workplan in Cambodia is on "Community-based water and land management systems for sustainable agricultural development" that 2-3 irrigation schemes as representative benchmark sites will be selected by using a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches and methods for data collection and analysis. I have very strong intention to encourage more and active involvement of women and children in the learning process and also in the development process for productive planning, use and management of water and land resources for sustainable agriculture in the community. This is based on my direct experience as a network coordinator/project leader who supervised the "ASIALAND Network: Management of sloping lands for sustainable agriculture project" during 2001-2004 (in 7 partner countries - China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) and a regional impact assessment was conducted and reported.

Some findings are as follows:

1. Only a small number of women farmers (less than 10 percent of the participating farmers) joined the training and workshops, field visits and meetings organized by the project, despite encouragement to do so. This was because they could not leave home for a long time (more than two days) due to their domestic and farming commitments. The farmers' children numbered the fewest participants in project activities for participatory learning and action. Therefore, training and capacity building programs for women farmers and farm children through experiential learning should be organized in the villages or nearby to provide better opportunities for them to attend. Learning by doing should be arranged with constructive feedback from resource persons to facilitate learning and action for illiterate clients. Individual peer teaching-learning should be implemented to encourage the clients to learn with each other through simple instruction, discussion and demonstration (Ref No. 1).

2. It was found that gender was associated with farmers' adoption of sloping land conservation farming systems at the 0.05 level of significance. Male farmers adopted introduced soil conservation recommendations more than women. However, this was not of practical significance as most of the respondents (58 out of 81) were male and results from the focus group discussion (FGD) revealed that decisions were mostly reached through joint discussion between husband and wife. Hence, this association should be further studied (Ref No. 2)

References:

1. Hashim, I. Hj., Daud, N. W., Dixin, Y. and Chandrapatya, S. 2005. Empowering small-scale farmers for productive and sustainable agricultural development on sloping lands. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Innovative Practices for Sustainable Sloping Lands and Watershed Management, pp243-256. Chiang Mai, Thailand. 5-9 September 2004.

2. Wapet, S., Buranatanung, N. and Chandrapatya, S. 2005. Factors affecting the adoption and aon-adoption of sloping land conservation farming practices by small-scale farmers in Thailand. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Innovative Practices for Sustainable Sloping Lands and Watershed Management, pp 257-267. Chiang Mai, Thailand. 5-9 September 2004.

Cheers! and All the best,

Suraphol

Suraphol Chandrapatya, Ed.D
Senior Agricultural Extension and Development Specialist
IWMI-SEA Regional Office
email: s.chandrapatya@cgiar.org