In terms of extension strategy:

• A shift from a commodity driven approach which has structured extension strategy so far, to a farming systems approach especially in dryland areas, where farmers have evolved traditional mixes in farming systems to meet their needs and to build in insurance against local condition (weather, rainfall patterns, animals etc.).

• A change in the information system; from a monopoly with a didactic and top-down approach, to a system that actively involves private companies, traders, NGOs and agencies dealing with agricultural inputs and markets. This will enable farmers to avail of the most accessible source and to compare and assess information; it will also provide feedback to research from a broad spectrum of sources and perspectives. Presently these intervenors are considered as competitors, profit seekers or just marginalised and kept at arms length. Professional services in communication need to be tapped to ensure that the medium and the message are effective. The message needs to emerge from active interaction with people and be based on the actual experiences of farmers with similar farming systems in dryland areas.

• A shift from standardisation (which has a strong bias towards irrigated cropping systems) in terms of attitudes, extension skills and systems to differentiation in order to meet the specific needs of small and marginal farmers in dryland areas whose farming systems differ not only from area to area, but even within an area, depending on their need, on the location (slope, near roads, towns or forests) of their fields and homesteads, on the depth, quality and type of soils (one micro watershed on the Deccan plateau often has several different types of soils; soil depths also differ significantly restricting horticulture to certain areas in the lower reaches which may not support the strategy to manage soil & water in a watershed), on the grazing lands available, on the availability of inputs, infrastructure and markets, on the credit and labour resources they are able to mobilise and on their yearly assessment of the performance and timing of the monsoon. This requires a broadening of the present spectrum of skills and support services which are currently limited to providing technical knowledge directed to production, and that of a single commodity or sector (often described as a ‘go-it-alone’ approach) to one that includes skills that support optimum farming systems, that fosters intra-sectoral complementaries (agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry) as well as linkages to institutions providing support to a broad range of activities. Technical knowledge alone is not adequate; farmers also need support to reduce input costs and incomes; they need to identify and exploit potential markets. In one MYRADA project, farmers who were growing flowers were being fleeced by middlemen. Though some of MYRADA staff identified the middlemen as the major obstacle to increases in farmers’ incomes, the farmers themselves did not; instead they asked to have a telephone installed to enable them to gain access to information, on a daily basis, about prices in two major flower markets where the flowers were sold. They were provided with a telephone; this enabled them to bargain with the middlemen every day which increased their incomes by over 50%.

• A shift from exclusive focus of research efforts on a single crop in laboratory or institute conditions to one which embraces all factors in order to evolve a synergy that provides the basis on sustained productivity taking into account both dryland farming field conditions and peoples perceptions and needs.

• A shift from an approach dominated by the culture of a ‘delivery system’ and assessed by targets that are easily quantifiable, to one that provides long term support to build appropriate farmers’ institutions which are encouraged to design their own rules and sanctions, their responsibilities and rights, their systems of records and financial control; they need not be registered if the members decide that registration is not necessary and may even make them vulnerable to official harassment. If their decisions are recorded, their financial systems open, their leadership changed regularly and whatever responsibilities they undertake carried out successfully, they need to be treated as viable and legitimate institutions even though they may not conform to the official blueprint. MYRADA’s experience with over 3000 such groups has provided sufficient evidence that if dryland farmers with similar farming systems are supported to form such self help groups whose members are linked on the basis of affinity, they can gain the confidence required to take the initiative during the process of identification and prioritisation of needs (for a project or research agenda) and for planning, budgeting, implementation and sustained management of investment and resources. This extension approach requires skills in institution building, participatory techniques and attitudes that empower farmers’ groups.

In terms of extension organisation and staff:

• Different norms for recruitment, compensation and incentives may be required for staff working with dryland farmers than for those working in irrigated areas.

• Administrative systems which are centralised (particularly in finance and administration), where leadership is politicised and morale low, are usually slow to respond to changing situations on the ground, to the need for organisational reform and to provide long term and sustained commitment to achieve objectives. Such institutions find it difficult to foster differentiation and to cope with other civic groups, to adopt participatory methods where people are effectively involved and to shift from a delivery system approach to one that provides support for institution and capacity building which are the fundamental strengths needed if the poor are to participate in an effective and sustained way in any intervention (including agricultural research) that affects their livelihoods. Government institutions involved with agricultural research and extension will have to be decentralised in terms of raising and managing resources as well as in administration and accountability. Professional support to establish and maintain the health of these organisations, similar to the support widely used is private corporations (and increasingly in NGOs), must be availed of and adapted to the organisation’s needs. This stress on the need for organisational reform is not misplaced; most of the institutions involved in agriculture were established in the ‘50s and ‘60s and have remained frozen in time in terms of agendas, approaches and culture

• scientists need adequate resources, time and space, besides the right attitudes and incentives, and to be fully devoted to research (not administration). Schedules and administrative pressures that restrict their involvement with people to occasional PRAs will not achieve the objective of transparent and effective interaction with all sectors of a stratified community; the social demand for public consensus in the presence of outsiders often conditions the results of public techniques used in PRA. Sustained and effective interaction, together with other intervenors (NGOs, Institutions - private and Government involved with agriculture who have comparative advantages that foster and enrich the interaction) is needed if people are to be involved and the interests of the poorer sectors are to influence the research agenda.

(e) I believe that essential items in the food basket (including nutrition for children) should be subsidised for the poor. The extension of an effective and regularly stocked public distribution system (instead of political gestures which tend to be short term), available to the poor, especially in arid areas, is an essential component in the strategy to enable the poor to build the basis of their sustainable livelihoods. It will keep them in the area, reduce their vulnerability to disease and to price rises (often artificially created). It will reduce their dependence on the local elite for consumption credit (at exorbitant interest rates) and work. It will also enable them to participate in broader concerns that affect their future instead of being fully immersed in daily survival. By the same token I dare to suggest the scrapping of all anti-poverty schemes which distribute subsidised assets; when they reach the poor, these assets cannot be maintained by them.

(f) I believe that subsidies for inputs in dryland farming systems (seed, fertilisers, feed, etc.) are necessary. A positive bias towards small and marginal farmers in arid areas is called for.

(g) I believe that the State needs to invest far more in research in dryland farming systems with special emphasis on local needs and conditions; on cereals which are so far neglected because they have limited or no demand over a large area and because many are considered ‘minor’.

(a) Participation of all stakeholders in a development project is now generally accepted as an essential condition for achieving a development objective, especially in the context of eradicating poverty and for achieving it in such a way that it is sustained and at comparatively lower costs in the long term. It is also generally accepted that NGOs and civic groups do have a comparative advantage in initiating the process of participation and in building peoples institutions required to sustain the project investment.

(b) Participation, however, is interpreted differently by each group of people, similar to the blind man and the elephant; the capacity of NGOs to nurture the process of participation also differs; there is also considerable difference in the output of participation depending on the NGOs ideology and the context. As far as the interpretations go, at one end of the spectrum is a group that limits participation to consultation - and here again there are diverse sub-groups: some consider consultation as a means to get people to buy into what they (in their wisdom) have already planned; others consider it an appropriate tool to ensure that all the stakeholders are involved, usually after the project has been identified by bureaucrats and technicians. At the other end of the spectrum is a group that tends towards the position that people have all the wisdom; all one needs is to elicit their participation; this can be done by using the right techniques supported by attitudes of openness and sharing and the skills of listening.

The interpretation of participation I have used in this paper is the following: It relates to several interventions (which utilise various techniques) that openly and primarily intend to initiate a process and which continue to nurture this process till it evolves into appropriate institutions of poor people which they manage and control and through which they design and implement the  strategy for their sustainable livelihoods. Initiation of this process requires the use of various methods to motivate people and to win their confidence. The nurturing referred to, is long term and involves support to acquire the skills, confidence and resources to build and maintain viable institutions and linkages among their own groups as well as with other institutions which they need to create a sustainable basis for their livelihoods. It is in the context of this process and capacity building that the research agenda can be set and followed through by sensitive and strategic interventions.

MYRADA’s experience has shown that intervention which seeks primarily to collect information (often rapidly) even where the public is involved, which clearly conveys the impression to people that it is short term, and which uses techniques that are limited to visual imagery and mapping, serve a limited purpose; they do not initiate a process and often do not reflect the wealth of diversity, the potential for conflict and the real interests of the poor.

MYRADA’s experience in the emergence and growth of peoples’ institutions in micro watersheds indicates that for peoples’ participation to be effective it required twelve interventions (each using a different technique or method) in the entry phase and another 12 (a few using techniques similar to those in the entry phase) in the planning phase. Though the role of MYRADA declined in the implementation phase its presence was required throughout and even for a period after implementation. The position this paper takes is that for people to participate in research, they must first have the confidence that they can better their livelihoods in a sustainable way. Participation in research, therefore, needs to be preceded by participation in programmes where they have the experience of taking the initiative and gaining control both of their present and their future. To integrate people in agricultural research therefore will demand a change in attitudes and a sustained commitment to strategies and methods with which many involved in agricultural research and extension have not been accustomed.

(c) MYRADA has had no experience in participative research in agriculture as presently practised, but it has adopted an integrated strategy based on respect for indigenous technologies used in crop, soil and water management, on the inter-relation of all lands in a micro watershed whether private or public and on the empowerment of peoples institutions so that they take over control. The problems, however, that MYRADA experienced in getting these technologies and management systems accepted officially and in integrating them into the plan, as well as in placing a value on initiates taken by people where local technologies were used, were several and took a long time to overcome. This experience also indicates that relating knowledge gained from research which is often limited to a single crop with that gained from experience which is based on integrated systems, will be a difficult and challenging task.

The Challenges we need to face are mainly in the following areas:

• Our understanding of poverty tends to be negative; we usually hear that the poor need inputs, skills, linkages; intervenors, therefore, carry out what is called a "needs assessment". We need to learn to start with peoples’ strengths; they may be few, but they have supported people through periods of stress, caused not only by short, unexpected disasters such as drought, but more importantly by a shrinking resource base - in terms of quality, area and quantity and by policies which obstructed their growth, because they did not support the infrastructure required or give them the freedom to exercise their potential. If dryland farmers have survived in a situation of increasing scarcity, they must be good managers.

• Partly because of the negative content we give poverty, our attitudes towards the poor do not foster respect for their strengths; often we do not even look for them. In MYRADA’s study of local technologies in soil and water management, we found that what engineers may propose as technically sound may not suit people who have multiple objectives. For example when constructing a boulder bund (boulders were available in plenty on the fields), farmers prefer to have a trapezoid shape with the lower side more or less vertical so that it coincides with his boundaries and does not encroach on the neighbour’s fields. When constructed with local skills these trapezoid bunds are quite stable contrary to expert opinion. The farmer admits that occasionally a few boulders topple over; but he is willing to invest in the effort to replace them rather than to create enmity by encroaching on his neighbour’s fields.

• The analytical tools familiar to researchers are often unable to cope with the fluctuating situation especially in dryland farming systems where people change their strategies for survival regularly; I heard that one researcher found the village ‘clumsy’ because the changing situation would not fit into his research framework.

• The techniques used to collect information are usually extractive and unfriendly to the poor farmer; they suit the intervenor’s skills, time schedules and back-up systems and are often used by young and inexperienced staff. True these techniques are becoming more farmer friendly - especially through the use of PRA, but there is a long way to go; besides though visuals are exciting and farmer friendly, knowledge embedded in religion, tradition and myth is not readily  ‘visualised’; one may have to ‘live’ in the village to understand these messages.

• Unless agricultural strategy also tackles policies, laws and regulations that inhibit livelihood operations, it will fail to be effective and sustainable. Laws governing the ownership and use of lands, policies affecting the prices of inputs need to be supportive of dryland farming systems; in many areas they are not. Agricultural strategy also has to take into account pressures arising from changing family values and demands as the culture of a consumer society makes inroads. A recent survey made by MYRADA indicates not only a significant annual rise in prices of articles in the food basket, but also a marked decrease in production of food for home consumption, and increasing dependence on the market for staple foods. There is also a sharp fall in production of traditional cereals as people shift to rice (from finger millet and sorghum) which is mainly purchased. Rice in some villages is a status symbol. The pressures to shift to cash crops, where possible, to meet consumption demands which are increasingly being conditioned by the mass media and preferences of younger women, are strong. The traditional knowledge that supported the production of traditional staples and adaptive strategies in farming systems is consequently dying out, as the need to pass it on to the younger generation declines.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The MYRADA Krishi Vigyan Kendra at Talamalai started functioning from October 1, 1992 with the support of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The Kendra is committed to the concept of facilitating participatory processes andpromoting innovations. Through the MKVK Participatory Intervention Series we attempt to share our experiences from time to time withother field functionaries. We welcome your views and suggestions on how we can add more value to our work. MYRADA’s address atBangalore is: No.2, Service Road, Domlur Layout, BANGALORE 560 071.