Summary
This project proposes a series of hands-on educational exercises in agrarian diagnostic and collaborative agricultural development, abroad and in the US. It will strengthen the ability of the University of Illinois and its graduates in Crop Sciences and other fields to analyze farming realities in any given region and to work with local farmers to address their most important problems. All activities will lead to strengthened links between the universities involved (University of Illinois, the Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, and Supagro Institut des Regions Chaudes in France) and the farming communities studied in the three countries.
US land grant universities have long been considered a beacon for models of agricultural teaching, research, and extension. However, the rapid loss of US family farms over the past hundred plus years indicates that these universities need to improve their capacity to respond to farmer priorities and needs, in order to make farming more viable for the families that depend on it.
This project will train students and professors from the University of Illinois, the UPTC in Colombia, and Supagro IRC in France, in the methodologies of agrarian diagnostic and collaborative agricultural development with farmers. A group comprised of students and professors from the three universities will carry out an agrarian diagnostic and a process of collaborative development with farmers in each of the three countries. The exposure of students to different agricultural realities, and to other students' perspectives on these realities, will prepare them to effectively work with farmers in any context in the US or abroad. Publications on the methodologies and results of the different exercises will be made available in English, Spanish, and French so that other universities can employ these approaches to better respond to farmer priorities.
Objectives
The general objective of this project is to create and strengthen collaborative links between the three universities involved (UIUC in Illinois, UPTC in Colombia, and Supagro IRC in France) and three local farming communities studied, one in each country.
Objective 1: Train students and professors from University of Illinois, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, and Supagro Institut des Regions Chaudes in carrying out agrarian diagnostics.
Objective 2: Train students and professors in carrying out processes of collaborative rural development with local farmers.
Objective 3: Share these methods and case studies with other universities in the US, Colombia, and France.
Justification
The methodologies of agrarian diagnostic and collaborative agricultural development have the potential to guide agricultural education, research, and extension to respond directly to farmers' problems. The US land grant universities are exemplary for their cutting-edge research in agriculture, and for the novelty of their agricultural extension systems. However, the curriculum taught to undergraduates often focuses so much on the technical aspects of farming, such as soils, fertility, and pest management, that the human factor of farming is forgotten. Ultimately farming is dependent on farmers, who should be the central focus of all agricultural research and extension. Given the stunning loss of family farms over the almost 150 years since the foundation of the land grant system, it is evident that the work of the universities and their graduates has not been entirely successful at responding to the priorities of farmers and maintaining the viability of their farms.
This project proposes a series of hands-on educational exercises in agrarian diagnostic and collaborative agricultural development, abroad and in the US. It will strengthen the ability of the University of Illinois and its graduates in Crop Sciences and other fields to analyze farming realities in any given region and to work with local farmers to address their most important problems. Through publications summarizing the methodology and results of these educational exercises, this knowledge will also be shared with other US universities, which will allow them too to respond better to farmer priorities.
Training multidisciplinary and multinational teams of students in these methods improves international competence of the University of Illinois in a number of ways. Firstly, the exposure of students to agricultural realities in different countries expands their understanding of the diversity of farming in the world. Secondly, the diverse viewpoints of students from different disciplines and different countries force all students to challenge their own preconceptions and to consider ideas they would not have been exposed to otherwise. Thirdly, the technique of agrarian diagnostic taught through this project has its origins in France, and is hence a wise use of an international methodology. Lastly, the agrarian diagnostic expands students' understanding of agriculture to take into account social and economic factors in addition to the geographic and biological factors normally associated with farming. Students will learn to analyze local agricultural realities of any part of the world in a holistic way and then to collaborate with farmers on local development efforts. In all these ways, the exercise of agrarian diagnostic and collaborative agricultural development is useful for agronomy students who plan on a career in the US or abroad in extension, rural development, agricultural product sales, research, or in any other role in which the ultimate goal is to serve farmers. For non-agronomy students the exercise gives them tools to work together with both experts and practitioners in any field to assess priorities and work in collaboration toward satisfying those priorities. The exercise also exposes non-agronomy majors to agricultural questions and can potentially steer future experts of diverse backgrounds to focus on agricultural problems.
The collaboration of the involved universities on this project, as well as their links to the local farming communities involved in the exercises, will lay the groundwork for future projects between the universities. In addition, the fact of having worked directly with farmers in their own countries and in other countries will serve as a model for the universities' future projects in agricultural research, extension, and rural development.
Approach
The proposed project has a duration of 2.5 years, from August 2010 to January of 2013. The activities are as follows:
Preparation and management activities
Prior to the first study tour, there are a number of general tasks that must be undertaken. Each university must conform an administrative and teaching team to work on the project. There must also be a student extracurricular group at each university willing to host and carry out the processes of collaborative development with farmers in the semester after each study tour. Finally, professors at all three universities will be given guides to the processes of agrarian diagnostic and collaborative development, and will discuss and adjust the methodologies.
Two semesters before each study trip, there will be a process of student recruitment for the trips. Professors involved with the project will make presentations to different groups to attract interest for the trip and subsequent collaborative development process. Any students wishing to participate will take intensive basic language classes during the semester preceding the study trip (in French, Spanish, or English, depending on trip destination).
Activities to achieve objective 1: Training in agrarian diagnostics.
In summer break of 2011, a group of 10 students from UIUC, 10 from UPTC, and 10 from Supagro IRC, as well as 2-3 academic professionals from each of the universities, will spend three weeks in Colombia: two weeks in the central high plains of Colombia conducting an agrarian diagnostic exercise (in some place where the authorities or farmers ask for a diagnostic), then a week compiling group reports on the diagnostic exercise. During the two week diagnostic exercise, the large group of students and professors would stay in a central village of the selected zone, and activities would center on a meeting room. Every day would consist of an introductory morning lecture, the dispatching of small groups (4-5 students) to carry out that day's fieldwork, the return of small groups to the meeting room to compile and synthesize their information in posters, the presentation of each small group's posters to the other groups, and a summary lecture by the professor team to end the day and preview the next day's fieldwork.
The sequence of fieldwork activities carried out over the two-week period has five steps: landscape observation and interpretation, interviews with older farmers to reconstruct the history of the landscape, interviews with more farmers to describe the functioning and economics of each rotation practiced, a detailed description of the functioning of the different types of farms of the region, and finally a presentation of results to farmers and other local residents.
The final reports written by each group, as well as individual interventions in group seminars, will be the basis for grades awarded to each of the 30 students for this three-week fieldwork experience, which will have a weight of 3 UIUC credit hours. Participating students and professors will also receive a certificate in agrarian diagnostic, co-issued by the three universities. Participating students will make presentations after the trip to interested classes.
In winter break 2011-2012, a similar group (though not necessarily composed of the same students and professors) will perform the same diagnostic exercise in a rural zone of the Mediterranean region of France.
Finally in summer break of 2012, a similar group will perform the same exercise in a rural area of Illinois.
It is not expected that the same students and professors will be willing or able to participate in all three exercises, due to personal scheduling, priorities, and graduations. However, those participating in two or three of the exercises will receive certificates to the effect that they have acquired a further expertise in carrying out agrarian diagnostics.
Activities to achieve objective 2: Training in collaborative local development processes with local farmers.
In the semester following each agrarian diagnostic field exercise (fall semester 2011 for the Colombia trip, spring semester 2012 for the France trip, and fall semester 2012 for the Illinois diagnostic), students will engage in a process of collaborative agricultural development with a group of farmers from the zone studied in the agrarian diagnostic. These groups will be conformed of interested farmers who attended the presentation of final results at the end of the diagnostic exercise. A student extracurricular group from each university (for example a subcommittee of the Field and Furrow club at UIUC), including but not limited to students who participated in the prior agrarian diagnostic, will organize a series of meetings with these farmers to expand on the conclusions of the agrarian diagnostic and pinpoint major problems and priorities for these farmers. Over a period of six months, the farmers and the students will plan and implement a project to address one of these major problems. Due to obvious geographical limitations, the student group from the university in the country where the agrarian diagnostic was conducted will be the ones to have the most direct contact with the farmers, but the student groups from all three countries will conduct regular correspondence with one another to design and implement the project.
Students from all three universities participating in this process of collaborative development with farmers will receive credit for a one hour independent study course at UIUC. Grading will be based on an initial paper from each student group with recommendations for activities to implement, a project design agreed upon with farmers and written up by the three student groups together, and a final evaluation by professors of the project outcome as compared to stated objectives. At the end of the six-month period, upon completing the planned project with farmers, students will receive a certificate in collaborative agricultural development, jointly issued by the three universities. It is not necessary for students to have participated in the agrarian diagnostic exercise to participate in and receive credit and certification for the collaborative development exercise. Participating students will make presentations to interested classes after the semester-long process of collaborative development.
Activities to achieve objective 3: Sharing of methods and results with other universities in the US, Colombia, and France.
Upon completion of each agrarian diagnostic, the professor team from the three involved universities will write a guidebook describing the day-by-day process of the agrarian diagnostic as it unfolded in the specific case. This guidebook will be published in English, Spanish, and French, and will be disseminated to other interested universities in the three countries.
Likewise, upon completion of each process of collaborative agricultural development, the professor team will write a narrative of the students' process of working with farmers. This too will be published in three languages and made available to any interested universities.
Students at UIUC who have participated in the agrarian diagnostic and collaborative development exercises will also make guest presentations to any appropriate classes (agronomy, development, anthropology, etc.), and the publications resulting from the different diagnostics and collaborative development projects will be available for use as models and case studies for any UIUC professors who are interested.
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