An analysis of factors affecting the speed of establishment of field-based farmer learning alliances: A case of Farmer Learning Centres (FLCs) in southern Zimbabwe

Abstract

Farmer learning alliances are an important vehicle for information dissemination and co-innovation among smallholder communities in southern Africa. However, the process of establishing functional farmer learning alliances tends to be uneven, slow, and costly for many development agents. This study explored factors that can be used to account for the unevenness in the speed of establishment of Farmer Learning Centres (FLCs). Twenty FLCs were initiated in Beitbridge District, southern Zimbabwe, and monitored over two years. Three categories of FLCs were observed in terms of time taken to reach maturity and full functionality: Slow, Medium, and Fast. Discriminant analysis was used to identify significant discriminatory factors among the three FLC categories. Results indicated that the number of meetings attended, the main source of livelihoods, age, sex, marital status, and years of formal education of the household head, and support from local leaders, differentially accounted for the speed of FLC establishment. The study recommends that learning alliances should be introduced through extension and local leaders as they are key information disseminators and custodians of local resources, and enterprise-specific training should be done to encourage full commitment to learning alliances to foster quicker establishment.

Keywords:

• discriminant analysis
• Farmer Learning Centre (FLC)
• establishment speed

Acknowledgements

This study was part of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) (Zimbabwe) Ag-livelihood project aiming at improving smallholder farmers’ climate change adaptation using the Farmer Learning Centre (FLC) approach as a vehicle implemented under the auspicious of the Soil Fertility Consortium for Southern Africa-University of Zimbabwe (SOFECSA-UZ). We appreciate the SOFECSA-UZ research team, CRS implementing partner (Caritas Masvingo), extension workers, and smallholder farmers in Beitbridge for their efforts that made this study successful.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was part of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) (Zimbabwe) Ag-livelihood project aiming at improving smallholder farmers’ climate change adaptation using the Farmer Learning Centre (FLC) approach as a vehicle implemented under the auspicious of the Soil Fertility Consortium for Southern Africa-University of Zimbabwe (SOFECSA-UZ).