Deputy Director General for Research and Development International Potato Center Lima, Lima, Peru
PR at CIP started with the Farmer-back-to-farmer approach in the 1970s aiming at working with farmers to identify their needs, propose solutions and explain the underlying scientific concepts. In the 1990s, PR, using the pilot area approach, was used to develop integrated pest management (IPM), where entomologists and social scientists worked directly with farmers in their communities to understand insect pest problems and develop solutions. Results indicated that it was essential for researchers, training specialists and farmers to work together and understand the farmer perceptions, and how they learned and made decisions about IPM. This experience influenced the adaptation of the Farmer field school (FFS) approach for PR in the early 2000s. FFS went beyond potato insect pests and included disease management, where farmers learned that late blight was caused by a micro-organism, while testing resistant varieties and fungicides, confirming again the value of combining crop protection with social and behavioral sciences, and the need to include a strong participatory training component. Results indicated that participating farmers learned new knowledge about potato pest, disease and crop management in general, realizing a 32% average increase in potato productivity and income in Peru; similar changes occurred in other countries (Bolivia, China, Ecuador, Ethiopia and Uganda,). In more recent years, PR has continued evolving beyond IPM and crop management and involving potato value chain actors with approaches such as farmer business schools and starting to use ICT to enrich diversity and richness of information sharing among innovation stakeholders aiming at enhancing farmer competitiveness.
