How to scale Management Advice for Family Farms in Africa

ABSTRACT

In Africa, farm advisory services are still dominated by the model of technology transfer. During the last two decades a new approach, based on adult learning methods, has been successfully introduced (Management Advice for Family Farms, or MAAF). The current challenge is to improve access to and the institutional and financial sustainability of MAFF. To this end, we conducted a participatory evaluation of existing MAFF services using four criteria: governance, funding modalities, capacity of advisors and adaptation of the method. We found that the main constraint to scaling MAFF is institutional. Giving producers’ organisations a greater say in governance would facilitate more appropriate advice, reduce costs and strengthen the services’ sustainability beyond project-level investments.

RÉSUMÉ

En Afrique, les services de conseil agricole sont toujours dominés par le modèle du transfert de technologie. Au cours des deux dernières décennies, une nouvelle approche basée sur les méthodes d’apprentissage des adultes a été expérimentée avec succès (Conseil de Gestion à l’Exploitation Familiale ou CGEF). Le défi actuel est d’élargir l’accès à ce conseil et d’améliorer sa durabilité institutionnelle et financière. À cette fin, nous avons mené une évaluation participative de diverses expériences de CGEF en utilisant quatre critères: la gouvernance; les modalités de financement; les capacités des conseillers; et l’adaptation de la méthode. Nous avons constaté que la principale contrainte au changement d’échelle du CGEF est institutionnelle. Donner aux organisations de producteurs une plus grande influence sur la gouvernance permettrait de donner des conseils plus appropriés, de réduire les coûts et de renforcer la durabilité des services au-delà des investissements liés aux projets.

KEYWORDS:

• Farm management
• evaluation
• advisory service
• producer organisation
• West Africa

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the French Agency for Development (Agence Française de Développement) for its support of the workshop and of the participants.

ORCID

Guy Faure http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8327-6085

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Guy Faure

Guy Faure is Director of Research in Management Science at Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD). His research focuses on advisory services, both participatory design of methods to improve advice provision to farmers and diagnosis of advisory services to strengthen public or private advisory service providers. He also studies innovation systems, in particular the impact of research.

Aurélie Toillier

Aurélie Toillier is a researcher in management science at CIRAD. Her research on advisory services and innovation processes focuses on learning processes in the interactions between advisors or facilitators and farmers. She designs methods to analyse and strengthen actors’ capacities to innovate. She works mainly with farmers’ organisations.

Ismail Moumouni

Ismail M. Moumouni is an associate professor in agrosociology at the Faculty of Agronomy of the University of Parakou, Benin. He uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to study producer attitudes to technological and institutional innovations. His current research focuses on agricultural advisory services and education.