integrated pest management helping communities become researchers and problem solvers

INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT

HELPING COMMUNITIES BECOME RESEARCHERS AND

PROBLEM SOLVERS

IPM?

• Origins and Background of IPM in Asian Context

• Linking NFE to IPM: The Farmer Field School

• Community IPM and Hoped for Sustainability

IPM Training for Women and Girls

• Farmer Field Schools for Women & Girls

• Student Field Schools– Cambodia

• Farmer Life Schools– Cambodia

• Field Schools for Out-of-School Girls– Cambodia

Farmer Field Schools

• Discovery learning approach

• Farmer to farmer transfer of the IPM innovation

• Demonstration projects

• Farmer-led research

• New associative groupings and applications of skills to different sectoral issues

Collecting specimens for analysis

The AESA process in the study area – discussing,

writing and drawing the report and making decisions.

Design Issues in FFS for Women

• Women’s literacy levels and lack of technical agricultural training/exposure to technical terminology

• Demands on women’s time: agricultural production, domestic work and child care

• Constraints of mixed-gender participation, caste, opportunity costs and location of FFS

Design Responses

• Linking FFS to livelihood improvement and savings and credit groups

• Adaptations in the curriculum

• Community support committees

• Opportunities for immediate application of knowledge and skills

• Opportunities for self and group assessment

Issues Related to Application of Learnings

• Women’s decision making authority (development of a gender analysis matrix on rice crop decision making)

• Literacy levels and participation

• Linkages with other development programs

• Community support mechanisms

• Follow up with individual farmer trainees

Student Field Schools in Cambodia

• Improve environmental management and farming practices

• Improve pedagogy

• Improve school governance

• Life skills agenda at the national level

Local farmers participate in the SFS teaching team.

Student Field Schools in Cambodia: 1998-2006

• Project trains primary school teachers to teach IPM principles and practices to students through hands-on student field schools

• Field schools combine classroom instruction with systematic field studies over a cropping season

• Curriculum is being institutionalized in general education curriculum

Students set up “insect zoo” experiments to learn

about characteristics of insects.

Farmer Life Schools: “Staying Alive on Route 5”

• Farmers study problems that threaten their livelihoods, weigh available options and make decisions

• Link farmer knowledge and experience with ecology, group organization, and discovery learning with Human Ecosystem Analysis

• FLS are run by farmers themselves

Sustainable Farming and Life Skills for Out of School Girls

• Introduces out-of-school girls to sustainable farming practices and broad environmental issues (elements of SFS)

• Farmer as researcher concepts from FFS are used to investigate health of communities, risks and opportunities

• Builds self-confidence to participate in family and community decision-making

Challenges in IPM Training for Women and Girls

• Sustainability issues

• Literacy levels

• Attitudinal issues toward women’s and girls’ roles in decision making

• Collaboration with government line agencies

• Funding