Description

Abstract: On-farm testing and research has been effectively used in all CRSP countries. This approach can risk the credibility of its proponents if the technology used is ineffective, unavailable to the farmers, or otherwise inappropriate. On-farm testing provides a realistic method of evaluating technologies developed at research stations before their wide dissemination. For instance, the organic fertilizer input rates developed at the research station in Rwanda were found in on-farm testing to be too high for rural ponds. Farmers’ ponds were more shallow than station ponds and their homes were too distant from their ponds for them to effectively observe low dissolved oxygen episodes (Rurangwa et al., 1992).

In Honduras, farmers who participated in CRSP research were allowed a choice of treatments (Teichert-Coddington et al., 1993). In Rwanda, however, all farmers were required to apply the same treatments. Rwandan farmers’ ponds at different elevations were used as an extension of the research station . The standard input regime was based on a survey of organic inputs available to all farmers in the study. Thus, the Rwanda on-farm experiments were research-oriented rather than extension-oriented. While the purpose of on-farm trials is often assumed to be extension or testing of research results, the Rwanda experience includes the role of general research.