FIPS-Africa has developed an innovative approach to enable all small-holder farmers in a village to quickly become food secure. Farmer Needs Assessment to understand what crops and livestock farmers have, and how they manage them. We work with farmers to help them to understand their constraints and to identify the inputs they need for increasing their crop and livestock productivity. We work wit
h them to modify their existing practices.
2. Partnerships. We actively search for the inputs that farmers need, and develop partnerships to promote them. Partners include Donors, National and International Research Institutes, the Ministry of Agriculture’s Extension Services and private sector farm input supply Companies.
3. Multi-technology offering. We believe that diversity is the key to food security. Farmers are simultaneously offered a range of inputs and services. These currently include improved varieties of their most important cereal (maize, rice, sorghum, millet), legume (beans, cowpeas green grams, pigeon peas, soybeans), root and tuber (potato, cassava, sweet potato, arrowroots), banana, vegetable and fruit tree crops (mango, pawpaw), a thermo-stable vaccine to protect indigenous chickens against the Newcastle disease, and improved livestock breeds. The simultaneous multi-technology offering also recognizes differences in gender and wealth, and that not all resource-poor farmers are initially able to adopt expensive inputs. For example, while a farmer may not initially be able to afford expensive seed and fertilizer to grow maize, she may be able to vaccinate her chickens. After selling her chickens, she may be able to buy the seed and/or fertilizer.
4. Self-employed Village-based Advisors (VBAs). Inputs and information are disseminated to farmers through VBAs. They are typically hard-working, selfless farmers who are respected by farmers in their Villages. They are typically selected by farmers in their Villages. VBAs are taught good agricultural practice, how to reach all farmers, and how to make money from input supply and related services. Most importantly, VBAs are able to generate enough income and are able to continue to offer their services after the end of a project.
5. Small Pack/Whole Village method. VBAs disseminate inputs to all farmers in a Village through the Small Pack method. A Small Pack typically contains 25 -100 g seed of an improved crop variety. The Small Pack gives all farmers, whether they are male or female, or wealthy or poor, the opportunity to experiment with a new variety on their own farms with little risk. The Small Pack is effective in creating demand for improved maize varieties, and farmers invariably return to the VBA to purchase larger quantities of seed. For self-pollinated and vegetatively-propagated crops, farmers multiply the seed to plant over larger areas to improve their food security.
