EXTENSION officers need to choose bio-based technologies that meet the needs of African small-scale farmers if they want them to participate in the emerging circular bioeconomy, says extension officer Ms Cristina Micrisse from Mozambique who was speaking at the Kenya BioEconomy Conference Workshop that took place in Nairobi Kenya on 24 October 2024.
Ms Micrisse graduated from Chimoio Agriculture Institute in 2016. She joined the staff of Provincial Directorate of Agriculture of Manica province as an extension officer in the district of Guro in 2019. She is now responsible for assisting local farmers (individually or in associations) in agriculture related issues including but not limited to crop production, post-harvest handling of food and industrial crops and commercialization.
Farmers in Guro, where she facilitates the biobased technology transfer with DIVAGRI researchers, were looking for additional food for their livestock. She introduced Gliricidae as an intercropping plant with the maize in Manica province because it could be used to improve soil health and provide feed stock.
“The nitrogen fixing quality of Glircidea did not mean anything to the farmers because they cannot see the change happening under the soil,” says Cristina. “Fortunately, the Gliricidae is also great livestock feed and when they saw their goats and cattle getting fat from the Gliricidae they bought into the biotechnology aspect of the plant.”
Gliricidia is a plant that has a high concentration of nitrogen in the leaves, being able to totally or partially replace the use of nitrogen fertilizers if used when intercropping it with maize. It also allows the symbiotic fixation of this nutrient to the soil through bacteria existing in its roots.
In support of Ms Micrisse’s point that research should address real life farming issues, the audience spoke on the need for researchers to adopt participatory action research methodologies when working with small scale farmers in Africa. This was because in the past researchers investigated problems and provided solutions for issues that did not at all address the needs of farmers.
“Agricultural researchers should first do a needs-based analysis of the communities they wished to engage with in research,” was one of the passionate pleas of a workshop participant who said she was both a researcher and a community worker.
Ms Micrisse warned that it was not only researchers that needed to do research but farmers too. Farmers should not grow crops that everyone was growing because then they could not ask higher prices. They need to find new ways of marketing and diversifying their products. What’s more, before embarking on agro-processing or the growing of new crops they should research market demand, she says.
Moreover, to encourage small scale farmers to participate in the bioeconomy governments needed to provide them with exchange experiences and sensitize them to working cooperatively as farmers so they could improve their selling power in the market place.
It is also important to choose farmers that are leaders in the farming community when trying to introduce new biotechnologies and circular economy techniques to rural farming communities. “When one has the support of these leading farmers all the other farmers will follow,” says Ms Micrisse, speaking from her years of experience of being an extension officer in rural Mozambique.