Farmers' Field School: a new medium for disseminating the new grafted-tomato technology for off-season production
2005
Aganon, T.M. | Aganon, C.P. | Roxas, A.C. | Marzan, E.G. | Pagaduan, R.V., Central Luzon State Univ., Maligaya, Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija (Philippines)
Tomato production in the country is generally a hit or miss enterprise and is fully dependent on climatic conditions. This is because tomato production is concentrated during the dry months, the resulting supply causing a market glut from December to May and almost sky-high prices during wet-hot months. Seasonality occurs because current tomato varieties are not tolerant to stresses of flooding and bacterial unit. A package of technology comprising heat-tolerant, grafted tomato varieties grown in a rain shelter was developed at the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center in Taiwan and fine-tuned at CLSU and validated in different farmers' fields in Central Luzon. The technology package is capable of producing a good harvest of tomato even during wet-hot months. Being new, the technology package has been confronted with skepticism from the farmers and even agricultural technicians. To speed up adoption and dissemination, it is necessary to convince the technicians of the utility of the technology so that they in turn can convince farmers and entrepreneurs. For the purpose, agricultural technicians(ATs) attended a Farmers' Field School(FFS) as trainers to learn and appreciate the FFS as an extension approach to enhance adoption and dissemination of the GT technology. Subsequently, farmers attended the FFS conducted by the trainers. Later, it was observed that the number of GT adopters as well as the volume of tomato production increased. This can be largely attributed to farmers' exposure to the technology during the FFS, where they observed firsthand GT success. The improved dissemination of GT technology can also be attributed to improved commitment among state colleges and universities, local government units, and the Department of Agriculture.
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