Collaborative action research: Alternative methodology to increase farmers' collaboration in the decision making process
1996
Avorn Opatpatanakit(King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok (Thailand). Faculty of Agricultural Technology. Dept. of Agricultural Technique)
Sustainable development could be created in the condition where farmers could utilize the fruitful of research and development that leads to improve their quality of life. This condition could be created by increasing the praticipation of farmers in the development process. This strategy could also be useful for the research and development of farming system including its technology transfer. In this article, the collaborative action research is viewed as an alternative methodology to increase the opportunity and the decision making power of farmers in the development process. The definition of participation needs to be clear because the word participation which is widely used in the context of agricultural development and rural development is recently criticized as pseudo-participation or false-participation where farmers take part as the follows. Here, the word collaboration is used in referring to the participation in the decision making process. The collaborative action research is a qualitative research which applies a holistic approach. It takes into account all factors relating to the development of farming system. It is a learning process where farmers are facilitated to be creators and decision makers in the continuous cycles of planning, action, observation of the consequence, and critical reflection on the practice and the consequence. In this learning process, changes and improvements are created by collective action base on farmers culture and what they have. Researcher is a facilitator in stead of coach. Facilitator creates the atmosphere in which farmers could develop their skills and ability in sharing ideas and experience, critical reflecing and making decision towards the direction of the development of farming system that leads to their self-reliance.
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