Key Findings of the Evaluation of the SRI-LMB Project
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By Anizan Isahak, Norida Mazlan & Anni Mitin SRI-Mas
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Key Findings of the Evaluation of the SRI-LMB Project
- 1. Key Findings of the Evaluation of the SRI-LMB Project by Anizan Isahak, Norida Mazlan & Anni Mitin SRI-LMB Workshop, Bangkok 1-2 November 2018
- 2. Objective of MTE To assess the progress made by SRI-LMB project towards achieving expected results, purpose and overall objective, document lessons learned and make recommendations for improving project implementation and achievements. The specific objectives are: a) To assess the relevance of the project b) To assess the efficiency of project implementation c) To assess the effectiveness of project implementation d) To assess the impact of project on society e) To assess the sustainability of project implementation
- 3. Methodology • Relevance • Efficiency • Effectiveness • Impact • Sustainability Desk review Focus group survey Case studies Key informant interviews
- 4. Focus Group Discussion: interviews with selected farmers (n=234) FGS Criteria Attended FPAR 50% has little or no access for irrigation 50% area women farmers 50% has land area less than 0.5 acre KII Program Coordinator LMU PMU Project Manager Project advisors Research coordinator Project support provider KII: Interviews through online form or face to face (n=17)
- 6. Laos field mission Vientiane Savannakhet
- 7. Vietnam field mission Bac Giang Ha TInh
- 9. Profile of FGS respondents • Gender: 67.9% female, 32.1 % male • Age: 41-60 years old (Cambodia: 52.2; Laos:43.4; Thailand: 49.4, Vietnam 50.3) • Education: Secondary level. • Household members: 4-6 • Household members working on farm: 1-3 • Rice planted area (ha): 2.48 in Thailand; 2.33 Laos; 0.58 Cambodia; 0.18 Vietnam • % Planted with SRI method (ha): Cambodia 0.25; Laos 0.34; Thailand 0.62; Vietnam 0.11 • Water: 70% rainfed • Planting method: 59% partially mechanized
- 10. Relevance Figure 1: Rice production issues faced before for participating in SRI-LMB project Relevance to the needs of beneficiaries, communities and stakeholders
- 11. Relevance Highlights • District agricultural officers play important roles in the community, supporting the relevance of the implementing strategies applied by the project. • The project is relevant to the needs of the rainfed farmers and women in rice producing communities. • Participatory approach of FPARs is very relevant in promoting science-based solutions • Using local innovations in SRI and FPARS in improvement of food security in context of climate change adaptations is highly relevant to the stakeholders in the project countries. • The role of FPAR participants to promote SRI-LMB activities to other farmers could be benefit through enhanced social learning skill development.
- 12. Efficiency Figure 2: Perceived efficiency of SRI-LMB program experienced by FGS respondents
- 13. Figure 3: Factors affecting SRI-LMB efficiency in implementing activities experienced by FGS respondents
- 14. Efficiency Summary The Efficiency of the SRI-LMB project implementation identifies the following attributes: • Innovative alliance-building that is highly participatory by design contributed to the cost-effectiveness of the project through multi- stakeholder supports, providing financial and technical assistance beyond the means of the project, where necessary. • The project delivers extensive outputs within the expected period achieving large outreach capacities and scale. • Stretching the budget to cover too many activities could eventually limit follow-up actions and compromise quality of the outputs. • Greater involvement of local leaders such as the Village Chiefs is important as has tremendous opportunity to bridge the gap between their communities and state officials
- 15. Figure 4: Key actors providing CFPAR and FPAR trainings to FGS respondents regionally Figure 5: Key knowledge gained from the SRI-LMB project (FGS regional average) Effectiveness
- 16. Figure 6: SRI principles and practices applied by FGS respondents in LMB region Figure 7: Major gains in practices and attitude change (FGS regional average)
- 17. Effectiveness Summary • The effectiveness of CFPARs and FPARs to achieve training objectives in enhancing knowledge, skills and experience of farmers particularly in SRI and crop management practices is respectable. • The principles and practices of SRI were effectively shared in the project with farmers. • However, the sharing capacity might not have the same degree of effectiveness in influencing their friends to participate in the SRI-LMB activities. • The training capacities of agricultural officers and SRI trainers could be further developed to ensure effective delivery of CFPARs and FPARs, as they play crucial role in smallholder farmer extension program
- 18. Impact • Impact on livelihood capital • Impact on innovation • Impact on research • Impact on policies • Impact on women
- 19. Figure 8: Impact of SRI-LMB project on livelihood capitals of FGS respondents
- 20. Table 1: Ideas of local innovations shared by FGS participations
- 21. Figure 9: Roles of women in the communities before participating in SRI-LMB Figure 10:Empowerment trends of women after participating in SRI-LMB project
- 22. Impact Summary • Self improvement: positive values to human, social, financial, natural and physical capital of farmers. {resilience, promotes well being) • Strong flexibility in the role of women • SRI practices brought greater potential in raising crop yields and income while reducing production inputs. Farmers’ and policy makers confidence in the role of SRI in poverty alleviation improved.
- 23. Sustainability Figure 11: FGS responses on the prospects of continuing SRI practices after ending SRI-LMB project
- 24. Figure 12:Provisional supports to ensure continuation of SRI practices in the LMB region
- 25. Sustainability Summary • There are opportunities for making rainfed farming system more productive and more sustainable involving smallholder poor farmers. • Farmers indicated strong likelihood and commitment to continue with SRI practices. However, continued technical support is necessary • The skills, combined with knowledge, social and political empowerment could be applied for other crops, and other livelihood environments. • Continued adoption and adaptation can take place under farmer-to-farmer learning. • Farmers have ownership in the PAR that they were particularly proud of and would continue to promote. • Market access for SRI products was not prioritized in the current scope. This would be a one of the key areas to be given consideration in the next phase. • Collaborative support from governments needed. • Use the results of the project to influence policy formulation, it is important to provide citable and credible research publications and policy briefs, with publishing science-based evidence for SRI being made prominently accessible on project related websites.
- 26. Recommendations • Focus on quality rather than quantitiy • Focus on strategic policy intervention • Harmonize SRI Training • Make publications accessible on public domains • Transform rice value chains
- 27. Thank You
Notes de l'éditeur
- The planting area reported here are lower than the baseline survey report. This was due to the FGS requirement specifically requested for at least 50% participation of smallholders owning less than 0.5ha of land.
- This project is very relevance to the target communities. As result found various issues faced by the farmers that hinders the higher yield area highest with unpredictable rain, pest and disease, High cost production, soil fertility and finally the high seed rates.
- In all 4 countries it was found the DOA are the key actors in disseminating the information on SRI-LMB project. The participatory approach of the project has provided a platform of engaging partnership among the key partners of the project. Participatory approach of FPARs is very relevant in promoting science-based solutions. The project is able to assimilate science-based interventions, through FPARs and field experiments, in the daily routines of rice farmers
- The efficiency of implementing the project was further evaluated in relation to the effects experienced at farmers level. The manner in which the activities were conducted was reported to be non-disruptive to farmers’ livelihood routines, communicated efficiently and timely that farmers were able to have better quality time with their family. This was also attributed to the skillful and knowledgeable trainers who provided valuable information.
- Even though the project activities such as CFPARs, FPARs and field experiments were generally considered non-disruptive to their routines, farmers also disclosed that some of the actions were time demanding as cited by 29% of the FGS respondents regionally especially when so for recording and reporting of data. Other factors that could compromise the implementation efficiency of the project were attributed to insufficient technical assistance (20%). As illustrated in Figure 15, the efficiency of the project was inconsiderably affected by low incidence of insufficient notice to inform changes (11%), inadequate follow-ups (7%), inability to identify SRI experts (7%), program postponement (7%) and cancellation of scheduled activities (7%). Other factors that compromised the efficiency of the implementation were reflected in the outcomes that farmers did not particularly appreciate about SRI-LMB activities such as the limited opportunities and supports for visiting other study or project locations and exchange visits, which was cited by 52% of FGD respondents in Vietnam.
- In addition, KII respondent also shared that originally, as the project was designed to work with farmers who had graduated from the FFS program, the curricula of FPARs were planned only for three days. However, it was revealed that in rainfed locations of the project, no FFS had earlier been established. The government, hence, decided to conduct 8-10 training sessions to cover basic concepts of crop development and other aspects in the FPARs. Thus, KII respondent also noted that larger number of farmers were trained on broader curricula, not only SRI. Unfortunately, follow-up activities (post-FPAR) was less frequent, despite an increase in training of new farmers (non-FPAR).
- The proposed action is to enhancing the resilience of farmers confronting climate changes & other challenges by stimulang and support local innovation through FPAR. The project also focused on farmers’ and partners’ actions and capacities to collect, evaluate, share and disseminate learned knowledge, which eventually was to be used in reformulating policies at different levels. Further probe into the effectiveness of the project implementation strategy was made on the objective of improving training capacities of farmer trainers, national trainers and local, involved in smallholder farmer extension program (Objective 4). As shown in Figure 18, when asked about who conducted the CFPAR or FPAR training they attended, 122 out of 234 respondents (54%) identified agricultural officers as their trainers. SRI Trainers who came from outside their villages were identified second highest (49%). Other trainers including trained village chiefs were cited by 5% of the FGD respondents. The effectiveness of CFPARs and FPARs to achieve training objectives in enhancing knowledge, skills and experience of farmers particularly in SRI and crop management practices was found commendable. As indicated in Figure 19, understanding healthy root systems (one of the key principles of SRI) was cited as key knowledge gained by 82% of the total FGD respondents in the region. This understanding was expressed highest by FGD respondents in Cambodia (89%) and lowest in Laos (49%) (see the respective Country Reports).
- However, the sharing capacity might not have the same degree of effectiveness in influencing their friends to participate in the SRI-LMB activities. The delivery methods and contents on CFPAR and FPAR may require some revisions particularly to look the effectiveness in improving farmers’ understanding on SRI principles and practices in relation to soil ecology.
- Overall impact : the project functions well in building capacity and confidence among farmers. has empowered farmers with better technical knowledge in managing their farm, where they were able to reduce the production cost and increase yield as stated by farmers themselves. has delivered an impact that not only enhanced knowledge and skills, but also promote attitude changes.
- Regionally, 27.8% of the FGS respondents reported experiencing highest benefits through improved productivity after participating in the project. This was followed by improvement in human capital with 25.5% respondents shared they gained new knowledge, skills and innovation potentials. Improvement in financial capital achieved through higher profitability linked to reduced production costs, was also reported by 22.4% of the FGD respondents. Improvement in productivity was experienced highest in Cambodia.
- some innovation aspects centralized mainly around farm equipment, production systems and social innovations. These include adjustment in planting dates for SRI practices in Cambodia and Thailand reported in 2015; 2016 in Cambodia, direct seeding and adjustment in field management where seeds were covered with thin layer of soils to protect the seeds and soil moisture for better germination during the drought spell)
- The participation of women is integral to the objectives of the SRI-LMB project. even before SRI-LMB project, as perceived by the FGD respondents, 18.3% of the women had been involved in managing their farms, followed by managing household (17.4%). Women farmers play many roles in their household. After implementation and participated in SRI-LMB project, there were no significant differences in women roles in farm activities. However, in Vietnam the percentage of women farmers involved in making decision has increased from 14.6% to 27.7%. The CFPAR in Vietnam, for example, in Vietnam successfully involved 66 trainers, including 36 women (55%).
- Figure 28 demonstrates high likelihood and commitment of FGD respondents to continue with SRI practices, with close to 90% of the FGD respondents making a positive declaration. On average, every country concurred positively, with Vietnam indicating highest rate to continue at 98.2%, whereby lowest rate for continuing SRI reported for Cambodia at 74.1%. Further probe into those who were not likely to continue with SRI (4.3% regional average) suggests that financial and infrastructure constraints could be the reasons. accomplished sustainable results that could last even after the project ends.
- some critical areas that would need to be addressed in order to ensure continuity of SRI practices identified are technical supports in farm management must have continued support, particularly with regards to SRI principles and practices. With the views for potential expansion of the SRI rice production in their fields, obtaining financing supports was also identified to be very necessary, where access to financing facilities such as micro-credits or loans would be helpful in expanding their farming practices with mechanization and market development. Various reports on the SRI-LMB project states that adoption and adaptation of SRI practices among farmers have been satisfactory. However, it is also important to access markets that could improve demand and prices for SRI products, as pointed out by 23.7% of the FGD respondents. Other factors such as village committee support, access to choices in rice seeds, fertilizers, opportunities for study visits and trainings are also cited.
- There are opportunities for making rainfed farming system more productive and more sustainable involving smallholder poor farmers. Farmers indicated strong likelihood and commitment to continue with SRI practices. However, continued technical support is necessary The skills, combined with knowledge, social and political empowerment could be applied for other crops, and other livelihood environments. Continued adoption and adaptation can take place under farmer-to-farmer learning. Farmers have ownership in the PAR that they were particularly proud of and would continue to promote. It is noted that the long-term impact assessment on sustainability of SRI is beyond the scope of the SRI-LMB project Market access for SRI products was not prioritized in the current scope. This would be a one of the key areas to be given consideration in the next phase. Collaborative support from governments needed, which could be realized when results are proven. Hence, using the results of the project to influence policy formulation, it is important to provide citable and credible research publications and policy briefs, with publishing science-based evidence for SRI being made prominently accessible on project related websites.
- Focus on quality rather than quantity Focus on strategic policy intervention --- tying to ecologically sound practices ( and linkages) Harmonize SRI Training --- translating tools, promote ( farmer networks and ASEAN) linkages, enhance technical support Make publications accessible on public domains ------which has bearing on the establishment of enabling SRI policies