3. Strategic Extension Campaign

The strategic extension campaign (SEC) methodology developed by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) emphasizes stakeholder participation in the planning, management, and implementation of extension and training programs (Adhikarya, 1994). Communication strategies and materials are developed based on results of a participatory problem identification process that analyzes the causes of farmers’ non-adoption of technology or practices.  The SEC program often starts with a survey of farmers’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP survey) of which results are used as planning inputs and as a baseline for evaluation. In addition, a series of participatory workshops are conducted involving various stakeholders to design materials for pretests, mass production, and distribution.  The team also develops management and evaluation mechanisms to assess the impact of the program.  

The team has adopted this methodology and has developed mass media materials to motivate changes in the way that farmers make decision about insecticide use in the Mekong Delta. The pilot project has worked in two districts of Long An province, to evaluate the use of media materials that encourage farmers to experiment or try a simple rule:  “Insecticide spraying for leaf folder control in the first 40 days is not needed.” (Heong et al., 1998).  Printed materials such as leaflets and posters, and a radio drama, were designed, pretested, reproduced, and distributed to a target audience of 20,000 farm families.  Two months later, a management monitoring survey of 4,640 farmers showed that 92% of the target farmers were aware of the simple rule.  More than half (59%) performed the experiment.  Sixteen months after the pilot project was initiated, a summative evaluation of 450 farmers revealed that farmers’ insecticide applications dropped from 3-4 to 1-2.  Before the project, 96% of the farmers made their first application of insecticide sprays in the first six weeks after sowing.  This percentage was reduced to 62%.  Farmers’ perceptions of leaf folder damage had become more favorable as shown in the belief index, which fell significantly from 11.25 to 7.62. The proportion of farmers who believed that leaf folders could cause losses went down from 70% to 25%, as well as the percentage who believed that early season spraying was required, from 77% to 23%.  A significant correlation has emerged between the farmers’ frequency of applying insecticide spray and the farmers’ belief index. For 80% of farmers, cost savings was the most important incentive to stop early season spraying. It is evident that the use of communication media to present a simple rule as a conflicting idea together with a method for evaluating that idea stimulated thousands of farmers to change (Escalada, et al, 1999).

Other provinces in the Mekong Delta adopted the approach and, in 1997, the campaign reached 92% of the 2.5 million farmers, reducing application of insecticide spray to an average of one time per year. These research results helped to convince the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to stop registering insecticides for the control of leaf folder.

The most valuable aspect of the SEC process is the platform it provides to facilitate stakeholder participation and the development of “win-win” situations.  Participants (farmers, researchers, extensionists, members of the media, policy makers, and representatives of NGOs jointly develop their goals in the process that seeks a “third alternative” (Covey, 1989). The process provides constant feedback thus encouraging stakeholder discovery of successes or failures, as well as the ownership and development of innovative ideas.  In Vietnam, for instance, participants from the radio broadcasting station modified the script that had been developed by the workshop participants (Heong et al, 1998), introducing jokes and colloquial conversations to make it appealing.  Seventy-two percent of farmers cited the radio drama as the second most common source of the campaign message (Escalada et al, 1999). Extension technicians came out with the idea of making the poster yellow so as to attract attention, especially when posted on the unpainted brown walls of farmers’ houses.  Participants also introduced four symbols in the poster, which were readily recognized by farmers, to represent the four incentives for not spraying insecticides. The vice chairperson of the Long An peoples’ committee of the provincial government chaired the campaign management committee and she was instrumental in promoting the project in the government’s general assembly meetings. This involvement of a provincial official played an important role in influencing 15 other provinces to adopt the campaign approach and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s initiative to stop registering insecticides for the control of leaf folder (Huan et al., 1999).