277
© The Author(s) 2019
T. S. Rosenstock et al. (eds.), The Climate-Smart Agriculture Papers,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92798-5_24
Chapter 24
Farmer-To-Farmer Extension: A Low-Cost
Approach for Promoting Climate-Smart
Agriculture
Steven Franzel, Evelyne Kiptot, and Ann Degrande
24.1 Introduction
The rise in importance of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has been accompanied by
increased concern over how CSA practices can be scaled up to reach millions of
smallholder farmers. While climate-smart agricultural practices—like conventional
ones—are sometimes complex and knowledge-intensive, public investment in extension services has been declining in many countries (Harvey et al. 2014). This situation
makes it increasingly difficult for farmers to access the CSA information they need.
McCarthy et al. (2011) cite the high cost of accessing information and the key role that
extension can play in reducing the cost and the risks of adopting CSA practices.
Lipper et al. (2014) claim that public financial support is needed to promote CSA
through extension services and other types of information dissemination.
In the face of increased demand for agricultural information and the reduced
capacity of extension systems, many extension providers have been using farmerto- farmer extension (F2FE), which is defined as the provision of training by farmers
to farmers, often through the creation of a structure of farmer-trainers (Scarbourough
1997). Surveys reveal that most farmers rely on other farmers as their primary
source of information about new technologies. The F2FE approach therefore can be
viewed as an extension of farmers’ existing practices. We use “farmer-trainer” as a
generic term, even though we recognize that different names (e.g., lead farmer,
farmer-promoter, community knowledge worker) may imply somewhat different
roles.
S. Franzel (*) · E. Kiptot
World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Nairobi, Kenya
e-mail: s.franzel@cgiar.org
A. Degrande
World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Yaounde, Cameroon
e-mail: a.degrande@cgiar.org
© The Author(s) 2019
T. S. Rosenstock et al. (eds.), The Climate-Smart Agriculture Papers,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92798-5_24
Chapter 24
Farmer-To-Farmer Extension: A Low-Cost
Approach for Promoting Climate-Smart
Agriculture
Steven Franzel, Evelyne Kiptot, and Ann Degrande
24.1 Introduction
The rise in importance of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has been accompanied by
increased concern over how CSA practices can be scaled up to reach millions of
smallholder farmers. While climate-smart agricultural practices—like conventional
ones—are sometimes complex and knowledge-intensive, public investment in extension services has been declining in many countries (Harvey et al. 2014). This situation
makes it increasingly difficult for farmers to access the CSA information they need.
McCarthy et al. (2011) cite the high cost of accessing information and the key role that
extension can play in reducing the cost and the risks of adopting CSA practices.
Lipper et al. (2014) claim that public financial support is needed to promote CSA
through extension services and other types of information dissemination.
In the face of increased demand for agricultural information and the reduced
capacity of extension systems, many extension providers have been using farmerto- farmer extension (F2FE), which is defined as the provision of training by farmers
to farmers, often through the creation of a structure of farmer-trainers (Scarbourough
1997). Surveys reveal that most farmers rely on other farmers as their primary
source of information about new technologies. The F2FE approach therefore can be
viewed as an extension of farmers’ existing practices. We use “farmer-trainer” as a
generic term, even though we recognize that different names (e.g., lead farmer,
farmer-promoter, community knowledge worker) may imply somewhat different
roles.
S. Franzel (*) · E. Kiptot
World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Nairobi, Kenya
e-mail: s.franzel@cgiar.org
A. Degrande
World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Yaounde, Cameroon
e-mail: a.degrande@cgiar.org