Innovating Towards Sustainable Agriculture: A Greek Case Study

Abstract

Agronomists (scientists and extensionists), despite the emergence of interactive approaches, still have troubles with (the introduction of) innovations, such as sustainable forms of agriculture. This article critically addresses such difficulties based on the evaluation of a project mainly concerning the introduction of Integrated Crop Management in a Greek village. Evaluation brought to light a number of ‘weaknesses’ which led to a rupturing of the project. Among them, despite the ‘triple bottom line’ and ‘interactive innovation’ rhetoric, the top-down and agro-scientific approach that was taken in practice, which resulted in bypassing the multifaceted nature of such projects and in misunderstandings among the parties involved, emerged as crucial. Therefore, prerequisites, in both theoretical and practical terms, of designs for interactive learning/innovation are outlined.

Keywords:

• Innovation
• Integrated Crop Management
• Projects
• Interactive learning/innovation processes

Introduction

Facing the increasing liberalisation and competitiveness of international markets as well as the demand for the production of safe and high quality produces produced under environmentally friendly conditions, Greek agriculture has been, for the last decade, on the threshold of important changes. The latter relate to the introduction of innovations aiming at ensuring both high quality production and environmental protection which, along with the reduction of production costs, will contribute to the socioeconomic viability of small-scale farming and rural communities.

One of the available sustainable farming options concerns ‘integrated farming’ systems. In such systems, occupying the middle course between organic and conventional/intensive agriculture, all aspects of crop rotation, crop protection and nutrient management are deployed to integrate economic and ecological goals in farm management (De Buck et al., 2001).

In the following sections, the case of a project mainly aiming at introducing Integrated Crop Management (ICM) in a Greek village is critically reviewed. Given the dominance of intensive farming in the area under consideration, ICM was an innovation for local farmers.

Theoretical Considerations

According to the ‘adoption and diffusion of innovations’ model (Rogers, 1962), innovations originate from scientists, are transferred by extension agents and are applied by farmers. Agricultural research and extension based on this, Transfer-of-Technology model (ToT), has a long history of innovations and increased effectiveness in food production. However, this ‘linear’ model has limitations when issues are complex—such as the increasingly complex modern agricultural systems as well as the shift to sustainable development implying trade-offs between environmental, social and economic sustainability. There are many reasons why such a ‘traditional linear’ approach fails to respond to complex challenges and rapidly changing contexts (Chambers and Jiggins, 1986; Nitch, 1982; Röling, 1988; Röling and Jiggins, 1998; Röling et al., 1998). Firstly, extension does not acknowledge farmers’ experience and knowledge. Secondly, general advice given on a regional scale often does not match individual farm conditions and the socioeconomic context of farmers. Thirdly, advice is often seen to come out of a ‘black box’, since the reasoning behind it is not transparent.

Therefore, this research-based, sequential and technocratic model is being challenged by a new understanding of innovation as basically a socially and territorially embedded process, which thus cannot be understood independent of its institutional and cultural contexts. This view on innovation implies an understanding of innovation as a social as well as a technical process, as a non-linear process, and as a process of interactive learning (Leeuwis, 2004).

Nowadays, innovation studies increasingly focus on learning itself, with emphasis on facilitation and the processes of human interaction from which learning emerges (LEARN@Paris, 2000; Röling and Wagemakers, 1988). The epistemological point of departure is that ‘learning is an active knowledge construction process’ instead of learning as ‘the (passive) absorption and reception of knowledge’ (Röling and de Jong, 1998: 144). Learning is seen as a social process in which participants in interaction and negotiation determine what is socially known (Koutsouris and Papadopoulos, 2003).

Especially as far as the sustainable management of complex ecosystems is concerned, it is forcefully argued that new approaches to learning, facilitation, institutional frameworks and policy support are required in contrast to ‘conventional-intensive’ agriculture (Röling and Jiggins, 1998). ‘Linear’ (ToT) thinking is out of place in the context of sustainable agriculture, because here a pool of partial insights has to be interpreted, integrated and refined at local level, and during this process new knowledge and technology are likely to be created.

Therefore, the question ‘how do we go about making agriculture more sustainable?’ does not concern only technical issues. For Leeuwis (2000) it is important to consider farmers’ views regarding new technical solutions’ compatibility with prevailing management demands and wider social–organisational conditions. Farming Systems Research and Extension approaches (Collinson, 2000) have demonstrated that local farming systems are complex adaptive systems that have co-evolved with human societies to fit local ecological conditions and satisfy human needs; thus for technology development it is important to ‘utilise’ farmers’ knowledge, to seek to satisfy local people's objectives and to actively involve farmers in experimentation and technology design.

In general terms, the shift from conventional farming to more sustainable forms of agriculture concerns a systemic change (Röling and Jiggins, 1998) and thus involves ‘double loop’ learning, i.e. a profound change in assumptions and strategies underlying subsequent actions (Argyris and Schon, 1974) or a move from traditional, first-order practice to second-order change, i.e. change in perspective or level (Ison and Russel, 2000). It follows that relevant research and/or projects have to be designed and implemented utilising the principles of experiential learning (Kolb, 1984) and its advances such as participatory learning and action research (King et al., 2001) stressing, among others, the importance of reflection and dialogue.

This, in turn, implies that farmers must feel a need to learn (especially in ‘crisis’ moments, when instability leads to a shared need for change/innovation), set their own strategic goals, participate actively, and build upon their own experiences and knowledge. Transparency of scientific models, facilitation of group enquiry with new roles for stakeholders, making the invisible visible, applicability of abstract concepts in the concrete situation and empowerment to understand science and facilitation are all crucial within a co-learning process which does justice to individual differences and qualities of people. Additionally, the learning environment has to be secured as a mentally and socially safe space, and allow for effective interactive communication; it requires trust and time.

The success of projects following such ‘co-learning’ strategies is nowadays well documented in literature, as for example in the case of a) Farmer Field Schools (Röling and van de Fliert, 1994; van de Fliert et al., 1995) and b) environmental cooperatives (Stuiver et al., 2003; Roep et al., 2003). However, problems and failures are rarely mentioned despite the fact that valuable lessons can be learned from them (Leeuwis, 2004). The question why such projects face problems or fail is rarely addressed. The aim of the following critical review of the Melissa project is to explore factors which in practice lead to ‘failures’, so that such factors do not remain, more or less, obscured.

The Melissa Project Design

In 2000, when the intensive monoculture cotton had proven its limitations and the forthcoming Common Agricultural Policy reform (foreseeing the reduction of subsidies, cross-compliance, changes in the co-responsibility levy system for cotton and the enforcement of agro-environmental measures) worried farmers and made them quite open to new ideas, the Development Agency of Karditsa (AN.KA.) conceived of the initiation of a project to introduce innovation in local agriculture. Through consultation with quite a large number of experts, AN.KA. outlined the project as follows: (a) establishment of a joint-farming scheme and thus of a large-scale, collaborative (called ‘community’) farm, consisting of small-scale private farms, in one of the Karditsa Prefecture's villages, in order to create economies of scale as well as to promote collective action; and (b) encouragement of farmers to adopt environment-friendly practices. In order to start ‘simple’ (i.e. to aim high, but not too high), ‘ICM’ was picked up as the most promising ‘technology’—which might further allow for the introduction of organic farming. Thus, the project's target was the adaptation of national ICM standards to certain cultivations and local agroecological conditions which, in turn, would allow for the certification of the produces by AGROCERT, the Greek certification organisation, based upon the examination of relevant records and farms by specialised auditors; such a process entails a cost for farmers but is not obligatory, unless farmers wish to sell their produces as ‘integrated farming’ ones. A further innovative element of the project concerned (c) the utilisation of modern marketing techniques in order to identify potential demand for produces with specific quality characteristics and/or possibilities for contract farming arrangements. Such actions were expected to result in the improvement of the quality of produces and the environment, with the overall aim being the pursuit of the so-called ‘triple bottom line’ (TBL), i.e. of economic prosperity, environmental quality and social viability (Elkington, 1997).

The village of Melissa, located 3km outside the Prefecture's capital (Karditsa city) and comprising 373 inhabitants including 81 farmers cultivating 420 hectares, was chosen by AN.KA. as the site for the implementation of the project due to a number of features such as: small farm size devoted to intensive, subsidised crop production on severely downgraded soils resulting in low productivity and agricultural incomes, absence of cooperative action, etc. When the project was launched (2001) the main crops cultivated were cotton and corn. It is important to note that since the accession of Greece into the EC (1981), owing to the structure and the nature of subsidies provided to the farmers, cotton became dominant in the plains. Furthermore, its cultivation has been intensified resulting in excessive use of agrochemicals and water and abandonment of rotations.

Support for the project was provided by: (a) a team of external experts and (b) an extension team (two agronomists) based in AN.KA. These two teams were to provide assistance to farmers in order to introduce ICM (re: adaptation of national standards) and/or new crops as well as to establish dialogue with farmers on socioeconomic and environmental issues, throughout the project.

The project took off in 2001 but was discontinued after the first cultivation period. Two years later, an evaluation study took place.

Methodology

Evaluation research was undertaken with the aim to investigate the reasons for the Melissa project's discontinuance. To this end, the evaluation team, comprising of two extension experts (one facilitator and one participant observer), did not choose a conventional evaluation design—involving measurement, judgement and description by ‘an external expert’—but took a constructivist approach according to which evaluation research was understood as an intervention which would influence the ‘reality’ of stakeholders and create knowledge through review, i.e. that evaluation is a process of construction and reconstruction of realities (Guba and Lincoln, 1989).

Within such a framework, entailing an interactive learning process, the Melissa project stakeholders were invited to participate in the project's review, i.e. to actively collaborate in gathering the data and making sense of the findings. The evaluation team acted as process managers and participants; the latter implied that the team's knowledge and experience were neither considered superior nor shielded from criticism, and thus reconstruction, throughout the project. The evaluation team organised a series of meetings in order to facilitate: (a) the construction/reconstruction of the local stakeholders’ experiences and views (successes, difficulties and outcomes of the project); and (b) the engagement of all stakeholders in a common ex-post exploration of the project. Dialogue was the means to help stakeholders to focus on reviewing their experiences as well as on exploring and negotiating their interpretations about the outcomes of the Melissa project.

In the first place, the evaluation team went through the available AN.KA. documents on the Melissa project comprising of a Melissa agronomic study, the project outline, and the activities–inputs to the project. Based on the review of documents, three separate meetings with each of the main actors of the Melissa project (i.e. farmers, AN.KA. and the scientific team) were held. The format of the meetings was open-ended; discussions revolved around three consecutive themes:

1. the project diary, that is the step-by-step or event-by-event, in chronological order, review of the project s trajectory (simple conversations encouraging stakeholders to get engaged in the process);

2. key topics which played a crucial role in the trajectory of the project (commending/reflecting on data); and

3. understandings of the reasons for the project's discontinuance (gathering and negotiating interpretations).

Discussions were transcribed and, after each meeting, analysed through content analysis (Patton, 1980), the latter taken in its broader sense of a categorisation schema of analysing discourse content elicited in each meeting.

Following a comparative analysis of the three first meetings and a peer debriefing, (i.e. consultation with an expert not directly involved in the research) a common meeting with the three aforementioned actors of the Melissa project was held at a later stage. The meeting was based on a critical review feedback provided by the evaluation team focusing on diverging Melissa project actors’ views, as expected, as well as resulting from comparative analysis of their views on the project. This triggered stakeholders to further reflect on their experiences and elaborate on what the project meant to them which, in turn, allowed for the negotiation of their multiple realities. Two external experts, an integrated agriculture expert and a rural sociologist, also attended the meeting as observers and afterwards produced their reports for the research team evaluators.

A final round of meetings was held afterwards. The first one concerned the opening of a dialogue among a wider set of local stakeholders. The last meeting, held on a later stage, concerned a final review of the Melissa project with (a) AN.KA and (b) farmers’ representatives and the area mayor, with the participation of the external rural sociologist.

The Melissa Project Diary

As already mentioned, the project was conceived by AN.KA. who, through consultation with experts, put the project outline and the expert team (university subject matter specialists in agronomy and marketing) together.

AN.KA. also initiated the project at local level. Through visits in the Melissa village the rationale of the project was presented to local farmers who were invited to join in both a new organisational scheme and a new production system (basically ICM). At that point, farmers were mainly concerned about the proposed reduction in the volume of agrochemicals to be used. Nevertheless, due to (a) a number of activities in which AN.KA helped farmers to improve their soils; and (b) the farmers’ willingness to try something new (re: disappointment with the situation and forthcoming CAP reform) a number of farmers accepted the creation of a collaborative scheme and paid a symbolic amount of money for the services AN.KA would provide to them. The new cooperative scheme/‘community farm’ comprised 25 extended-family representatives (representing 70 individual farms) cultivating 190ha, mainly cotton (125ha).

In parallel, a number of cultivations (mainly legumes with good marketing prospects) were examined by AN.KA and the expert team and proposed to farmers with the aim to change the existing (unsatisfactory) system. However, none of these were adopted by the Melissa farmers.

Thus, the decision was taken—by all the stakeholders—to proceed with the focus being the shift from the ‘conventional’ cotton cultivation to the ICM system. No major problems occurred during the cultivation period. Farmers were quite happy to see the AN.KA agronomists (extensionists) visiting their farms and taking care of their cultivations as well as recommending practices and inputs to be used. Extensionists were able to establish: (a) a common language; (b) a good working relationship; and (c) a climate of trust with farmers. Despite a couple of unfortunate incidents concerning technical matters during the project implementation, farmers still valued the work of the extension team and would like to see them again in their fields. However, farmers were not willing or able to keep the records required by the ICM system; thus extensionists undertook the task.

The problem occurred when the produced cotton had to be sold. Because of the relatively limited amounts of cotton produced in the Melissa Farm ginning units were not interested in buying it at a noticeably better price. Some plants offered to relocate brokerage costs from local brokers to the Melissa farmers provided that the latter would be able to deliver their produce to the factory; then a negligible premium was offered to farmers as well. Concurrently, local brokers exerted strong pressure onto farmers not to bargain collectively and directly with the industry about their produce. In the end, farmers, having neither the necessary equipment to deliver their cotton to the industry nor the skills and will to organise and carry out such a task, and being under pressure, sold their cotton through local brokers at the usual prices. In addition, the product was not formally certified.

Because of the problems encountered at the marketing stage there have been disagreements among farmers as to whether they should go on with the project. Thus, the project stopped as such, with extensionists providing occasional recommendations in the next cultivation period after which that extension support also ceased. Nowadays, the Melissa farmers still follow some of the techniques learned through the project, such as the timely and precise of application of fertilisers and agrochemicals - albeit within the existing conventional farming paradigm.

Understanding ‘Failure’

In the first place, evaluation research showed that the three stakeholders of the Melissa project, held the opinion that the project had failed. However, their views concerning the reasons behind this failure diverged.

For ANKA. the failure was related to: (a) the difficulties farmers had in accepting the re-structuring of the cultivation system (re: introduction of new cultivations); (b) the difficulties with marketing the Melissa Farm produce (small amounts of cotton along with a marketing/industrial system not interested in the quality of the produce); and (c) the failure to foresee the role of local brokers.

According to farmers the failure of the project rested in the fact that they had tried a new system yet they were not rewarded for it. For them, the attainment of a better price for their produces was a major issue.

On the part of the experts the main issues were: (a) the difficulty on the part of the farmers to adopt ‘innovative’ ideas such as the production of vegetables; (b) the ‘mission impossible’ under the prevailing conditions to introduce a totally new product or a ‘brand name’ which would fight for a market share due to the high costs involved in marketing campaigns; and (c) the unwillingness of cotton processors and/or marketers to collaborate.

The dialogue developed among the stakeholders (with the facilitation and participation of the evaluation team) led to the emergence of a number of themes each with a different interpretation and therefore of varying importance for each of the stakeholders.

The dominant problem revealed in the evaluation research concerned a significant gap in understandings about the project right from its beginning. On the one hand farmers held the view that agronomists came to their village and proposed a new production system; furthermore, they understood that they would have to follow certain technical recommendations (or choose among a limited number of recommendations) and as a consequence they would get some reward (i.e. a better price for their produce). On the other hand, AN.KA argued that the intention was the improvement of farming in Melissa through the introduction of both a new scheme (social target) as well as new produces and ICM with better chances in the market (technical target). According to AN.KA., the achievement of a better price at the end of the cultivation period was never stated as a basic dimension of the project.

However, similar arguments (i.e. the attainment of better prices in the mid- or long-run, given the scaling up of ICM which would allow farmers to negotiate with the industry, or access to subsidised national or regional schemes) were used by AN.KA. in order to convince farmers to participate in the project. It was thus ascertained that the Agency's long-term goal was ‘translated’ by farmers as an expectation for better prices in the short term. The expert team played only a minor role in launching the project; their participation in one of the meetings with the farmers was restricted to technical issues.

The in-depth exploration of such a divergence of understandings showed the way to a ‘deeper’ issue: the relationship between AN.KA. and the Melissa farmers. AN.KA. thought of themselves as servicing, not leading, the village farmers. On the contrary, among farmers the ‘business as usual’ assumptions prevailed: they had been waiting for the Agency's initiative and action, expecting extensionists to provide the ‘solution’. It was thus revealed that the AN.KA. staff neither made their role clear nor understood farmer's expectations from both AN.KA and the project.

A related issue was that, apart from an outline of the project aims, a comprehensive project plan delineating the technical procedures and social processes involved was never established. While, at first glance, the ‘technical’ part of the project was not affected (given the task at hand and confidence in the available technical expertise), this shortcoming had a number of negative corollaries for the ‘social’ component of the project. As already mentioned, the terms of participation of the involved parties were not clearly delineated; thus, quite some confusion as far as the roles, tasks and commitments of each of the partners occurred. Furthermore, the absence of a clear account of the social process (objectives and relevant methodology) made it difficult for the Agency to monitor the ‘social ingredient’ of the project. While AN.KA. was right in identifying the need (project aim) for social processes to lead in the construction of a TBL vision (systemic change) aided by the establishment of the new cooperative scheme, extensionists did not, in practice, engage with the issue; the extension team's intervention focused exclusively on technical training and advice concerning the implementation of the experts’ recommendations. This, in turn, did not allow for the articulation and further elaboration/negotiation of actors’ understandings and intentions.

It can thereby be concluded that different understandings and expectations of the project, and different assumptions of the role of the partners, were not explored, negotiated and consolidated; control or ownership of the project was never broached. Moreover, purpose, meaning and understanding as well as institutional aspects of innovation(s) were not explicitly addressed. AN.KA. and the expert team did not embark on learning as either a concept for change or a process of inquiry to manage change and complex situations, which would lead to new understandings, practices, and behaviours.

The introduction of ICM (and/or alternative crops) was not taken as a chance to shape the process of stake-holding and the understanding of what is at stake, thus for identifying acceptable trade-offs, negotiating costs and perceived benefits and reaching consensus about recommendations. The introduction of such innovation(s) did not trigger the creation of spaces of exchange facilitating a reflexive process and engaging stakeholders in joint learning. The technical boundaries of the ‘problem’ were defined by experts and the knowledge exchanged with farmers was merely technical. Values, identities and social relations along with innovations’ management demands and economic consequences were not dealt with.

Such a failure to engage in a social process focusing on learning ‘as a solution to a problem’ had repercussions manifested in the ICM project.

As mentioned previously, a number of alternatives were examined by the expert team and AN.KA. and brought to the farmers who turned them down. Evaluation research brought to the surface a certain translation of farmers’ aspirations for ‘something new’ from experts and extensionists: claiming that farmers did not know how to go about it, they willingly undertook the task; their intention was to ‘show the way’ to farmers who, in turn, were expected to take control of the project in the mid term. However, despite the initial allegations by experts and AN.KA., evaluation research showed that farmers: (a) had in mind some alternatives that were never discussed; and (b) turned down, for example, the production and processing of vegetables since such an alternative would require substantial work loads not available either by the farmers concerned (most of whom are engaged in off-farm jobs) or in the area.

It was then disclosed that AN.KA. and the experts had inadequate knowledge of the economic, social and cultural conditions of Melissa. The structural particularities of the area concerning its economy and employment (pluriactive farmers with little time available for labour-intensive agriculture) as well as the demographic and cultural situation (aged population, low educational level, rather negative attitudes vis-à-vis risks, etc.) were rather unknown to the project initiators.

This had a further crucial repercussion: as evaluation research brought to light, there had been a serious gap in understandings between farmers and AN.KA. of what is (or, is not) ‘rational’ economic behaviour. While the Agency understood it within an enterprising spirit, implying profit maximisation in the long term through optimum exploitation of (foreseen) opportunities, farmers sought to stabilise or maximise household incomes in the short term. Thus, in the given circumstances, farmers chose the security provided by multiple job holding and the current cultivation and marketing system, instead of risk-taking towards a new production system (e.g. legumes) and marketing networks (e.g. cotton brokers), because that was the ‘obvious way’ for them to care for their livelihoods.

Additionally, as already mentioned, the crucial role of brokers in economic and technical (i.e. provision of loaders and trucks needed for the collection and transportation of the harvest to the ginning industry) as well in social terms (long established relationships with farmers) had not been pinpointed by AN.KA. Local brokers were ignored till the critical (post-harvesting) time when they came to the fore; then, given the limitations on the part of the farmers, the Agency did not have the means to ‘confront’ them. The failure to identify brokers as well as the ginning industry (re: unwillingness to pay for quality cotton) as project stakeholders and to try to make ally with them was the ‘most obvious’ reason which led, to a large degree, to the failure of the project.

A final issue concerned the fact that, as already mentioned, the produced cotton was not certified. According to AN.KA., this owed to the costs incurred of such a procedure. Nevertheless, the Melissa farmers expected such certification. In the first place, certification was related to the expectation for better prices. Through evaluation research, a second topic also emerged. Certification was important for farmers’ image; that is, ‘showing to the (ginning) industry and other farmers/citizens that the Melissa farmers were able to make a certified produce’.

Conclusion

The ICM project in Melissa village was based on the local Development Agency's (AN.KA.) vision for the plain areas in Karditsa Prefecture (i.e. the establishment of ‘community’ farms along with the introduction of more sustainable forms of agriculture—with ICM conceived as an intermediate stage towards organic farming). The project was, in principle, compatible with farmers’ felt needs for change and espoused an interactive approach to innovation (re: integrated focus on social, environmental and economic issues (TBL) and dialogical approach to stimulate change). Thus AN.KA., assisted by a team of experts, initiated the ICM project. The project's failure proves, in the first place, that good intentions or the mechanistic attempt to transfer successful practices do not suffice.

Furthermore, the project suffered due to the profound gap between rhetoric (i.e. ‘TBL’ implying a transdisciplinary/participatory approach; Thompson Klein et al., 2001; Gibbons et al., 1994; Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1999) and practice (i.e. the project-wise, planned and top-down approach followed). Fundamental to this was the absence of social scientists in the expert team along with the fact that the involved agronomists–experts had pre-determined (technical) objectives in mind and understood the situation as a classical ‘problem-solving’ (to introduce knowledge to solve the problem) instead of a ‘problem-finding’ one (interactive learning to rebuild questions). Therefore, the cultural and socioeconomic parameters of innovation were ignored; indeed, the main problems encountered within the project related to the inadequate understanding of the social and economic reality of the area. After the initial farmers’ agreement to go on with the project, participatory problem investigation, visioning and building a long-term, shared agenda for action were by-passed; poor connectivity among actors, in turn, resulted in communication gaps and divergent understandings as far as targets and roles were concerned, thus in the loss of farmers’ interest to transform or renew relations and, finally, failure. The ‘community’ farm, after its establishment, was abandoned as a means for interactive learning and capacity building.

Contrary to the Melissa project, the evaluation researchers moved from external process observers or experts (extractive approach) to active participants, positioned within the processes unfolding, while also process managers. Researchers thus engaged in action as learning agents; based on a number of tools (diaries, stakeholder review groups, external peers) they facilitated both the reconstruction of the project puzzle (given the time lag between the project failure and the evaluation research) and, through dialogue, fostering reflexivity and interactive learning, the digging out of the reasons for the project's failure.

As a result, evaluation made clear among participants the misunderstandings and deficiencies that led to the project's discontinuance as well as the prospects for future cooperation. Moreover, in 2007, AN.KA. launched an on-going project aiming at identifying ideas for, largely agriculture-related, innovations in Karditsa Prefecture, based on the facilitation of dialogue among local people. This has, in the first place, taken the form of local meetings, in each of the Prefecture's municipalities, to elicit ideas, followed by the construction of thematic networks with the task to introduce project ideas to be further elaborated with the assistance of external actors/experts (Koutsouris and Segi, 2008). Thus, evaluation assisted in (the consolidation of) new (interactive) understandings about innovations as well as of relevant (project) designs.

Such designs refer to social learning occurring ‘when citizens become involved in working out mutually acceptable solution to a problem that affects their community and their personal lives’ (Webler et al., 1995: 444). They involve an interactive (or participatory) process which aids the identification of both innovative and relevant initiatives, including both technically sound solutions and alternative social–organisational arrangements, with farmers ‘owning’ the agenda. Such an approach, in turn, relegates scientists, extension workers and other experts to the role of co-learners, as well as focuses on learning, innovation and other desirable outcomes as emergent properties of interactive systems. Therefore, power is redistributed and processes of planning and decision-making are negotiated.

However, putting into practice such an alternative to the conventional TOT/TOK designs proves much more difficult than its theoretical conception (see: Nederlof and Odonkor, 2006). This largely owes to the fundamental epistemological problem involved; certain aspects of scientific traditions become barriers vis-à-vis the involvement of diverse stakeholders and going beyond traditional specialisation. In this respect, attempts to integrate natural and social sciences provide a departure from disciplinary reductionism towards constructivist approaches and thus facilitate the collaboration between disciplines as well as between researchers and farmers.

Furthermore, on a more ‘practical’ level, there is still a lack of detailed and practical ‘how to do it’ guidelines for practitioners involved in interactive learning/innovation processes. Contrary to the linear ToT model where monitoring and evaluation aim at assessing effects, interactive models are more process-oriented and allow for changing problem definitions, search routes and thus solutions. This deficiency, in turn, is a major difficulty allowing in practice for the neglect of process-oriented components of projects (especially under constraints of time and personnel). Methodologies to structure multiple stakeholders’ learning processes, with learning conceived as a method and process for change as well as indicators of process (participation and the emergence of learning) and results (in relation to the purpose of change with emphasis on second-order change) have to be further elaborated. Or else, methods, skills and tools relating to transdisciplinarity, partnerships and constructive dialogue (i.e. to the creation of circumstances in non-deterministic ways for dialogue to emerge and to trust in emergence, such as reflexivity, mediation, brokering and networking for learning among stakeholders) need to be further explored and structured. The development of such capacities entails a change of perspective on the part of researchers: the purpose is not only to analyse systems but also to act systemically. It finally calls for the training of ‘social agronomists’ (whether researchers/experts or extensionists; Leeuwis, 2000) thus also involving the renewal of higher education.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive recommendations which contributed to the substantial improvement of the first draft of the current piece of work.