LE CONSEIL AGRICOLE, UNE DEMARCHE PORTEUSE A L'EPREUVE DES REALITES : PREMIERES LEÇONS D'UNE EXPERIENCE DE CHANGEMENT D'ECHELLE AU NORD CAMEROUN

Patrice Djamen (1) , Michel Havard (2) , Joseph Wey (2) , Delphine Lefèvre (3) , Sandrine Djomo (4)

1 ACT - African Conservation Tillage Network
2 UMR Innovation - Innovation et Développement dans l'Agriculture et l'Agro-alimentaire
3 ISTOM - Ecole d'Ingénieur d'Agro-développement International
4 FASA - Faculté d'Agronomie et des Sciences Agricoles [Cameroun]

Management advice for family farms (MAFF), a promising extension approach facing challenges of field realities: preliminary lessons from an experience of scaling up in North Cameroon. In Sub-Saharan Africa, agricultural extension approaches based on prescription are no more effective. The evolution towards agricultural advice that uses listening and dialogue is restrained by the lack of knowledge on its extension. The objective of this research was to study the advance process from prescription to dialogue from the analysis of the implementation of agricultural advice by the Cotton development company of Cameroon (SODECOTON). Characteristics of its advice device were studied and its performance evaluated by surveys on the level of assimilation and application of the advice by farmers and extension agents. Determinants of the performance of the device were analyzed with a SWOT matrix. SODECOTON is using agricultural advice as a tool to reform its extension approach and empower farmer. Despite the enthusiasm of farmers and extension agents, the weak performances of the device due to the inadequate profile of extension workers, the low education level of farmers and the cotton crisis, show that the shift from directive to listening is a long run process. Agricultural advice generates tensions of technical, organizational, economic and social nature which increase with the level of appropriation of approach. Influence of the environment of the device on its performance is very high. The implementation of Agricultural advice in North Cameroun must be conceived as a component of an agricultural innovation system with the involvement of other actors with more strategic roles (the State, agricultural training and research and service providers).

Mots clés: device; learning; North Cameroon; Agricultural advice

Domaines: Agriculture, économie et politique

Patrice Djamen, Michel Havard, Joseph Wey, Delphine Lefèvre, Sandrine Djomo. LE CONSEIL AGRICOLE, UNE DEMARCHE PORTEUSE A L'EPREUVE DES REALITES : PREMIERES LEÇONS D'UNE EXPERIENCE DE CHANGEMENT D'ECHELLE AU NORD CAMEROUN. ISDA 2010, Jun 2010, Montpellier, France. 10 p. ⟨hal-00530953⟩