Technology transfer up scaling for improved land resources management

Continued low agricultural productivity among most small scale farmers in Africa have persisted despite numerous programmes initiated during the first two decades of political independence. The World Conference in Agrarian Reform (WCARD, 1979) was organised by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAa) with a broad objective of examining the reasons for this persistent low productivity and to device ways of alleviating this problem. Among the identified areas for intervention was how to generate, validate and transfer appropriate new agricultural technologies to the target beneficiaries with emphasis on vulnerable groups such as women and youth. Commodity based approaches during the colonial era, such as the promotion of cotton in Gezira, coffee, sisals and tea etc had positive impact, although it adopted the Transfer of Technology (TOT) Model in development and dissemination of technologies. The mode of technology transfer from research to farmers via the extension agents failed to produce expected results in terms of increased farm productivity. Research - extension - farmer linkages were identified as an important component for achieving high agricultural productivity among smallscale farmers. New extension approaches, which advocated for fanner participation, were initiated in late 1960s early 70s. The World Bank introduced the Training and Visits (T and V) model of transferring technologies to the farming communities on pilot basis in 1976. Along 29 with the T and V, the Farming System Research and Extension (FSR and E) model was initiated in the 1980's to address the problem oflow agricultural productivity in Africa. The FSR and E model became more confined to the National Agricultural Research Stations (NARSs) with minimal involvement of extension agents and farmers. Both the T and V and FSR and E achieved minimum success (Benor and Baxter, 1984; Asiabaka and James, 1991). This led to investigation and introduction of participatory approaches among them the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), Farmer Participatory Research (FPR), Participatory Learning and Action (PLA), Rapid Appraisal of Agricultural Knowledge System (RAAKS) and Farmer Field School (FFS). The FFS approach has shown positive results in terms of farmer empowerment in knowledge and skills, thus improving farmers' incomes and increased farm productivity in South East Asia. The implementation of IPM and Soil Management Technologies (SMTs) among the small scale farmers in Selected Districts in Kenya, have yielded positive impact on Crop and livestock productivity. Three research projects, which evaluated the effectiveness of FFS in terms of farmer empowerment, group cohesiveness, dissemination and adoption of technologies showed significantly positive results (Tams 2003; Mwagi, 2003 ahd Bunyatta, 2003). Therefore up scaling of FFS training methodology beyond the research sites is anticipated to produce positive results in increased productivity and poverty reduction. However, these new participatory methodologies must be rigorously testd to establish that complete efficacy in all communities lest extension fall in the same abyss of low productivity levels, which have been recorded in the past.