The World Bank/WBI’s CBNRM Initiative
Case Received: February 5, 1998
Author: Mr. Engkoeswara, IPM Field Leader from Garut, West Java
Translator/Editor: John Pontius, FAO IPM Training Specialist
Tel: +62 21 780 0265
Fax: +62 21 789 0288
Email: yogyaipm@yogya.wasantara.net.id
COMMUNITY-BASED IPM: A FARMER-DRIVEN MOVEMENT
A Field Case Study from Bali, Indonesia
Indonesian IPM Farmers move beyond ecological field management to areal resource management, organizing, and local policy formation. Farmer-led movements entail the mastery of skills and methods far beyond the technical/agricultural as empowered farmer organizations reclaim an active role in determining the course of sustainable agricultural development. To achieve this, it is not enough to change their own practice or 'adopt' technology; nor is it enough to deal with agriculture in a narrow sense. IPM farmers develop vision, strategies, tactics, and concrete plans giving them effective leverage on issues and institutions immediately influencing their lives such as credit systems, local government policy, water resource management, and local government development funding mechanisms.
The case of Marga Sub-district in Tabanan, Bali illustrates how training programs cannot be satisfied with merely the provision of improved information and skills. In addressing ecological agriculture IPM programs must work against 30 years of engrained top-down habits and entrenched vested interests. Hence Farmer-led programs must continue to expand their focus to encompass a broad range of issues while putting farmers, and their evolving organizational forms, at the forefront. The sub-district level in Indonesia represents the active 'interface' between the lowest level of government service provision and local farming communities, and as such has become the strategic organizing level for community-based IPM development.
Context
The Indonesian National IPM Program is the most aggressive ecological agriculture training program in the world. By early 1998, nearly 1 million Indonesian small holder/landless men and women farmers will have graduated from season long 'IPM Farmer Field Schools', a growing season long 'school without walls' where farmers use live fields as their 'textbooks' to master ecological principles and practices.
While such a training effort penetrating all the major rice bowls of the country is laudable, it is not sufficient to establish a sustainable, community-based movement. A major shift in emphasis has taken place over the last 4 years as IPM activists, fieldworkers, and farmers analyzed accrued experience and realized that true 'institutionalization' at the farmer community (as opposed to mere 'bureaucratic persistence' within government agencies), could only be achieved if the the program followed-up with trained farmers by providing them the tools and skills to 'take-over' the evolution of the program.
The IPM Program has always promoted what tradition/conventional crop protection, extension, and research agencies view as heretical concepts. The initial 'heresy' was that farmers themselves could become experts in ecological IPM through the Farmer Field School approach. However in recent years the scope of heresy has expanded to encompass 'Farmers as IPM Trainers', 'Farmers as Researchers', 'Farmers as Organizers', and 'Farmers as Policy Makers'. At present over 16,000 farmers have become IPM field Trainers and have run full-season Farmer Field Schools in their communities supported by not just the National Program, but also by local government and communities themselves. This alone makes the IPM Program the largest and most intensively organized Farmer-led extension/education effort ever undertaken. Farmer-led 'action research' programs and follow-up field studies conducted by farmers in response to local specific issues have also emerged across the country, in some locations developing entire farming system approaches capable of solving problems that resisted formal research initiatives for decades. Farmers have taken over dissemination of information through 'Farmer Media': local bulletins, leaflets, socio-dramas, posters campaigns, etc. created, produced, and disseminated by IPM farmers based upon their direct experience. Farmer organizing has been pursued through the development of a range of local forums for 'communicative action' among IPM Alumni. Farmer Planning meetings allow the establishment of area-wide plans by emerging farmer associations; Farmer Technical Meetings bring together representatives of IPM village groups for discussion of local research results; Farmer Trainer Forums bring together the network of IPM Farmer Trainers for improving technical and organizational skills. These organized activities were geared to provide IPM farmer-organizers with the tools needed to further their own organizational goals; but the program does not prescribe the form or type of organization that should develop in any given locality. Any sustainable farmer association, network, organization, group, etc. must be borne of, designed, and nurtured by farmers themselves. Currently, a broad range of farmer-led, locally funded organizations are emerging across the country. Some are as simple as regular network meetings of IPM alumni at the village level. Many work to either resuscitate or take-over existing organizations such as official Farmers' Groups or local Water Users Associations while 're-educating' local government agencies. Others have established formal, legal 'foundations' comprising hundreds of members across whole districts. And in some instances these networks have jelled around immediate issues, as in West Java where a 'IPM Farmer Trainer Congress' gathered over 700 members at a rural pesantren (Islamic Boarding School), resulting in a delegation sent to meet with the Minister of Agriculture to (1) present pesticide-free rice produced by their IPM cooperative, and (2) protest the lack of government action in curtailing the flow of banned pesticides. Most importantly, these farmer-driven organizations have become independent of the National IPM Program, and are actively organizing and implementing a range of activities in their areas by co-opting local institutions and development mechanisms and effectively leveraging local support with little or no input from the national level program. The result is a blossoming of truly sustainable local resource management rooted directly in farming communities.
National IPM Policy supportive of such development is contained within a Decree of the Minister of Agriculture from 1994; wherein it was enunciated guiding principles including:
However. we doubt that in 1994 the Government envisioned that farmer-led initiatives would go this broad, this far, or this fast.
Outline of Marga IPM Case
The full Case Study totals 38 pages, with a lay-out including maps, tables, detail 'boxes' and photos of activities and key actors, and numerous direct quotations. In developing the case, Mr. Engkoeswara, who has been active in developing IPM farmer organizations for 5 years in West Java, spent two weeks with farmers and the local community. Methods used included open interviews, field observation, and participatory group analytical techniques. Much of the data was already available from local farmer trainers and IPM fieldworkers. A large number of such case studies concerning field reality at the sub-district level have been developed, each with emphasis on specific issues. These are used by the program to compare and analyze experience and to plan strategies for coming seasons. Since the province of Bali is a relative latecomer to the National IPM Program (1992 vs. 1989 for other provinces), the Marga Case study highlights a area in the middle of the evolutionary process of IPM Farmer organizing and the resultant impact (practices, values/attitudes, pesticide use, farm economics, policy changes, social gains) of activities to date. The basic outline of the case is as follows:
Part I: The Evolution of the Program from the setting of the program tothe initial IPM Farmer Field Schools through the emergence of plans for building a community-based program.
Part II: The Development of Farmer-led IPM Programs including an explanation of the roles and relationships between key actors within the program
Part III: Impact Analysis include:
Excerpts from case: (all have box or photo)
1. From summary of IPM program field activities conducted in Marga Sub-district. The Subak, a traditional resource management institution, provides organizational infrastructure for IPM Field Schools.
Field School meeting in Pama Subak
The subak of the sub-district have been active in their support of Field School activities. In observations made of Field Schools the writer found that subak were supplying Field Schools with learning materials such as newsprint, felt-tip pens, and crayons so that there were always more than enough good quality materials on hand. Materials for Field Schools are stored at the secretariat of the subak so that they are safe. Field observation drawings are also stored at the secretariat. This type of logistical support is made possible because Field Schools in Marga Sub district have all been located at the subak secretariats which usually have large meeting spaces and are cited at the edge of the rice fields.
According to the Field Leader for Tabanan District, Bali, I Nyoman Sueca, and the PHP for Marga, I Nyoman Darta: "We all, the subak and IPM trainers, are committed to making sure that materials are complete and that management of Field School logistics is carefully tended to so that Field School quality is not hindered because of lack of support."
According to the data held by the PHP and Field Leader, alumni from the 20 Rice IPM Field Schools that have been conducted have all been involved in one way or another in some follow-up activity. These follow-up activities have included non-rice Field Schools, farmer planning activities, and farmer conducted field studies. Since 1992, 500 farmers have participated in Rice IPM Field Schools. One hundred fifty of these alumni have participated in non-rice FFS. The table below shows the volume of FFS activities each year since Field Schools were first conducted in Marga and the numbers of farmer participants
2. Areal Planning workshops provide opportunity for IPM alumni to develop resource based plans.
The areal planning activity took place in August and September of 1997. The goal of this activity was to create a set of plans at the village and sub-district levels which would help farmers, with the support of the District IPM Field Leader and the PHP, to establish selected villages as IPM Villages as a first step toward establishing Marga as an IPM Sub-district. The 12 Farmer IPM Trainers in Marga were trained in the areal planning process which included:
Map drawing in the areal planning workshop at the sub-district level
The Farmer IPM Trainers were then divided among six villages (Tua, Kukuh, Beringkit, Petiga, Kuwum, and Tegaljadi) where they conducted planning activities with IPM trained farmers from the villages. Following the village planning activities the Farmer IPM Trainers along with representatives of the farmers from each of the villages gathered at the sub-district level to develop a sub-district plan based on the village plans.
The vision determined for Marga Sub-district included the following characteristics:
IPM farmers in Marga thus expect that an IPM Sub-district would have farmer alumni, Farmer IPM Trainers, an IPM network, and farmers able to conduct field studies.
The plans for the sub-district included:
3. Impact of IPM training can be measured in a variety of ways the following is a "boxes case" presented within the Marga case study plus a table showing decreases in pesticide sales to farmer by a village cooperative.
A "Traditional" Approach to Pest Control
IPM alumni from Penge Subak described a traditional approach to controlling various types of caterpillars found in the ricefield.
"As young people we were taught by our parents about how to control caterpillars, caseworms, and other pests by using shredded coconut after it had been used for making coconut milk. First you lower the level of water in the ricefield so that the field is dry enough to walk in, but there is still moisture in the soil. Then you spread the used shredded coconut on the rice plants. This draws ants. All kinds of ants including fire ants. After the ants have finished off the shredded coconut, they start on the caterpillars and caseworms in the field.
"However, once we had the program where pesticide was given to us for free and then later when pesticides were part of the input package to control pests because they were said to be easier and faster to use, we stopped using this traditional control method. We wanted to be 'modern'.
A simple shrine prepared by members of Pama Subak for ceremonial offerings.
"Now, after having participated in the IPM Field School, we have come to understand that perhaps this method was a way of using natural enemies to control pests. A method that was both inexpensive and did not endanger the environment. As well, it appears that this traditional method was a way to observe Tri Hita Karana so that the ricefield ecology was not damaged. This we came to understand after our Field School. So we have taken this method up again and use it along with other methods such as light traps to control pests. We do not use pesticides."
Table 11 , below, contains pesticide sales data for the years since Field Schools began to be implemented in Marga Sub-district, 1992-1997. The data come Marga III Village Cooperative Unit which serves three villages. The data concerns the six most popular pesticides (based on sales over the period) from each cooperative. There were years in which some materials were not ordered by the cooperative units, hence there are no sales data for those materials. The data reveal that IPM alumni have been able to influence farmers in general to decrease their use of pesticides.