Keynote Lectures
Location
New Delhi, India
Start Date
2015 12:00 AM
Description
The world is changing rapidly. Grassland farmers and ruminant livestock breeders will have to adapt to these changing environmental, social and economic conditions. Research can help them at the condition that linear ‘top-down’ technology transfer methods are abandoned for the benefit of participatory and holistic approaches. These approaches classified in the generic term of ‘Farming System Research’ consider farmers as real research partners, and they merge farmer’s and scientist’s ideas with those of other stakeholder types. They combine scientist’s and farmer’s knowledge for creating fast innovations, easily adopted by farmers since farmers themselves contribute to their design and their development. Innovations can then be disseminated by these farmers towards more important group of farmers. This process of innovation dissemination is very efficient because there is nothing more convincing for a farmer than listening and looking to what a similar farmer has achieved for improving its system and its income. These approaches proved to be successful in many parts of the world but it has still to be developed in many other regions. This will require a paradigm change in research, extension, teaching and production methods. It will also require a strong political will. The adoption of a holistic view is a prerequisite for developing an agriculture that conserves resources, maintains rural employment and minimizes external costs, while achieving high productions. Holistic livestock breeding is grassland-based. It minimizes the use of external inputs. It could maintain or restore biodiversity. Holistic livestock breeding is thus based on the principles of agroecology.
Citation
Peeters, Alain, "Participatory and Holistic Approaches with Grassland Farmers and Development of Policies" (2015). IGC Proceedings (1993-2023). 33.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/igc/23/keynote/33
Included in
Participatory and Holistic Approaches with Grassland Farmers and Development of Policies
New Delhi, India
The world is changing rapidly. Grassland farmers and ruminant livestock breeders will have to adapt to these changing environmental, social and economic conditions. Research can help them at the condition that linear ‘top-down’ technology transfer methods are abandoned for the benefit of participatory and holistic approaches. These approaches classified in the generic term of ‘Farming System Research’ consider farmers as real research partners, and they merge farmer’s and scientist’s ideas with those of other stakeholder types. They combine scientist’s and farmer’s knowledge for creating fast innovations, easily adopted by farmers since farmers themselves contribute to their design and their development. Innovations can then be disseminated by these farmers towards more important group of farmers. This process of innovation dissemination is very efficient because there is nothing more convincing for a farmer than listening and looking to what a similar farmer has achieved for improving its system and its income. These approaches proved to be successful in many parts of the world but it has still to be developed in many other regions. This will require a paradigm change in research, extension, teaching and production methods. It will also require a strong political will. The adoption of a holistic view is a prerequisite for developing an agriculture that conserves resources, maintains rural employment and minimizes external costs, while achieving high productions. Holistic livestock breeding is grassland-based. It minimizes the use of external inputs. It could maintain or restore biodiversity. Holistic livestock breeding is thus based on the principles of agroecology.
