Presentation delivered at the CIALCA international conference 'Challenges and Opportunities to the agricultural intensification of the humid highland systems of sub-Saharan Africa'. Kigali, Rwanda, October 24-27 2011.

1. Degrande A, Yeptiet Siohdjie Y, Tsobeng A,
Asaah E, Takoutsing B, Mbosso C, Sado T,
Tchoundjeu Z and Tchouamo I
World Agroforestry Centre
ICRAF-West and Central Africa

2.  Agricultural extension in a historical perspective
 Dissemination of agroforestry innovations in
Cameroon and why involve community-based
organisations?
 Assessing performance of relay organisations in
dissemination of agroforestry innovations
 Research framework
 Performance indicators
 Hypotheses
 Results
 Concluding remarks

3. Importance of agricultural extension:
 Strengthening the agricultural sector in order to:
 improve access to nutritious food,
 reduce rural poverty (at least twice as much than
investment in any other sector ; FAO 2011).
 Agricultural extension has a key role to play

4. ‘60-’70: heavy government investment in agric
extension
‘80-’90: structural adjustments =>
drastic decline in investments
‘00-’10: renewed interest in
agricultural extension
=> Role of agriculture in pro-poor development
=> Awareness that farmers get information from many
sources; public extension is only one and not necessarily
most effective Feder et al. 2010

5.  More pluralistic
 Demand-driven
 Cost effective
 Efficient
 Sustainable
(Feder et al., 2010)
=> But effect on productivity,
poverty and financial
sustainability of is not
known

6. Staggering Production &
Poor Livelihoods
Low adoption of agricultural innovations
Ineffective dissemination methods
Innovative and low cost ways of
disseminating agricultural innovations
Particularly true for
:
@ Complex
@ Knowledge intensive
@ Long term benefits

7.  Not all extension services  Not all aspects of
need to be organised or extension are pure public
executed by government goods
agencies  PRIVATISATION
 DECENTRALISATION  FEE-FOR-SERVICE
 INSTITUTIONAL PUBLIC PROVISION
PLURALISM
 EMPOVERMENT
 PARTICIPATORY Public sector finance
APPROACHES essential in countries with
many subsistence farmers

8. Agroforestry
ICRAF-WCA has been innovations
experimenting with - Tree improvement &
the concept of relay integration in
organisations and rural agricultural landscape
resource centres for the
dissemination of - Soil fertility
agroforestry management with shrubs
innovations for the last and trees
5 years in Cameroon,
DRC and Nigeria. - Strategies for marketing
of AFTPs

9. Demonstration
Capacity Building Training ; F
I Instit support Techn assistance A
C R
R
R M
O
A Feedback Feedback E
F R
S
• Government extension
services
• NGOs
• Farmer groups
• Other change agents

10. Tree nursery
training hall and offices
Agroforestry demonstration plots

11. Learning from each other during study visits
Exchanging planting material
between resource centres
Experimenting together with farmers
vegetative propagation techniques on
species prioritised by communities

14. Indicators: Factors likely to influence
 Number of groups performance
supported and farmers  External:
reached  Policy & institutional
 Increase of farmers’ environment
knowledge on and mastery  Farming systems & market
of agroforestry access
 Rate of diffusion (how  Community aspects
many innovations have
been disseminated)  Internal:
 adoption of agroforestry  Capacity and management
innovations  Advisory methods
 Farmers’ perception of
performance

15. External factors
Favourable Unfavourable
Internal Favourable PROAGRO (2000) FONJAK (2000)*
factors RIBA (2002)* ADEAC (2003)*
APADER (2004)* CAMECO (2005)
MIFACIG (1998) II
I
Unfavourable RAGAF (2008) GICAL (2000)*
PIPAD (2008)* APED (2008)
AJPCEDES (2008) SAGED (2008)*
FOEPSUD (2005)* CAFT (2004)
CIMAR (2009) CANADEL (2010)
FEPROFCAO (2009)
III IV

17.  Human resources
Cat RO Total Number Highest Staff
number of trained in qualification of trained in
staff farmer AF staff gender
organisation issues
Cat I APADER 7 4 MSc agribusiness No
RIBA 3 3 Agric technician No
Cat II ADEAC 6 6 Agric technician No
FONJAK 8 6 Agric engineer Yes
Cat III FOEPSUD 5 5 Agric technician No
PIPAD 18 2 Agric technician No
Cat IV GICAL 1 1 Secondary No
School
SAGED 6 3 Secondary Yes
School

18.  Material resources
Cat RO offices library meetin compu printer interne motorb vehicle
g room ter t key ike
Cat I APADE
2 1 1 4 2 2 2 0
R
RIBA
14 1 1 2 1 1 1 1
Cat II ADEAC
5 0 1 2 1 1 1 0
FONJA
6 0 1 6 1 0 1 3
K
Cat III FOEPS
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
UD
PIPAD
9 1 2 3 1 1 1 3
Cat IV GICAL
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
SAGED
1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0

19.  Role of ROs in development and dissemination of AF
innovations
 75% satisfied with interactions with ICRAF
 All felt their feedback was valued, but only 25% (those
with RRC) identified their involvement in participatory
research as a distinctive role
 Combination of methods used: theoretical and practical
training, demonstration plots, open door events, RRC (2
cases)

23. 1. Overall,ROs studied were successfully
diffusing agroforestry innovations to farmer
groups
 increased relevance of techniques
 Better quality of services rendered to the beneficiaries,
(relatively high level of satisfied farmers)
 relatively high number of women and youths reached,
often overlooked in ‘traditional’ extension systems
 Better linkages and networking with other
stakeholders

24. 2. Differences in performances of ROs not
easily explained by external or internal
factors, but ROs that operate in areas with relatively
good road and communication networks and
opportunities for agroforestry, and also have adequate
internal human, material and financial capacity
seemingly performed better
=> indications of type of support that might be required to
further strengthen these relay organisations and increase
their extension capacity

25.  technical expertise of RO staff
 Quality of the messages delivered
=> role of continuous training and coaching
 difficulty of cost recovery
=> More research on financial viability and sustainability
of the approach
 No clarity about factors that affect performance most
=> in-depth studies involving more relay organisations to
increase our understanding of what factors affect
performance most

26. a.degrande@cgiar.org