Module 7

For small-scale farmers, knowledge is a key ingredient for production and for improving livelihoods. Knowledge helps farmers to live and farm in a sustainable way, allowing them to adapt to changing conditions. Farmers not only learn from external sources, by the means of extension, education or information and communication technologies, but a large part of knowledge for sustainable small-scale farming is generated on the farm itself.

Indigenous or local knowledge, generated and shared by farmers, plays a crucial role in small-scale agriculture. As is increasingly recognised, innovation by small-scale farmers is of great importance to deal with changes in the environment, like climate change, globalisation and urbanisation. However, systems of agricultural knowledge are not always well equipped to incorporate farmers’ knowledge.

Formal education and extension are still too often organised within a top-down model, where there is little space for farmers’ input. Participatory approaches have been taking farmers’ own knowledge much more seriously. Also, they have helped to build capacities of farmers and other actors involved in the process of innovation and learning.

All these issues, and more, are explored in Module 7. The different Learning Blocks examine various aspects of knowledge in small-scale agriculture at farm level, in the wider context, and at the level of governing institutions. Throughout the module, this material is linked to several educational resources, including games and exercises, articles, videos, photos and ideas for field visits, in order to stimulate discussion and reflection on knowledge issues in small-scale agriculture.

Get a preview of Module 7