The farmer-driven land care movement: an institutional innovation with implications for extension and research

There is a sound basis for assuming that watershed degradation does not have to be an inevitable consequence of using sloping land for agriculture. Small holders can engage in farming and management of natural forest resources in both a productive and resource%conserving manner. Awareness of this has focused attention on evolving demand%driven, community%based approaches to watershed resource management, in which those who occupy the land actively participate in management and sustainable utilization of their local watershed resources for multiple purposes. A look at current prescriptions for more sustainable farming systems in Asian watersheds reveals an enormous variability in conditions, and consequently a high degree of technical uncertainty about the effectiveness of the solutions proposed. The problems are not solved by simple recipes. Often, the issues need to be tackled at a scale bigger than the individual household, cooperatively at the community level. In Asia, much attention has been given to the role of local organizations in forest management and management of other common natural resources. This is exemplified by the progress in joint Forest Management in India, Forest Users' Groups in Nepal, and Community%Based Forest Management in the Philippines (Poffenberger and McGean, 1996). But local organizations may also be a means to mobilize knowledge to solve problems in agriculture through improved land husbandry. Particularly in countries where decentralization of power and fiscal responsibility is occurring, and democracy is becoming institutionalized down to the village level, leadership skills in the farming population are maturing. These skills provide a basis for the evolution of organizations led by farmers that address practical ways of overcoming their problems in creating a more sustainable agriculture.

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