Cogent Food & Agriculture (Dec 2024)
The potential of farmer training video for supporting agroecological vegetable production in Benin
Abstract
In Benin, vegetable production contributes significantly to food security and poverty reduction. However, vegetable farming is confronted with declining soil fertility, poor pest and disease management, and climate change. Agroecological farming offers a new paradigm of sustainable agri-food systems that counters these challenges. From August to December 2015, farmer training videos (FTVs) were sold to enable farmers to learn about agroecological techniques. In October 2022, we interviewed a sample of 180 vegetable farmers in four municipalities where the FTVs were sold, to find out which technical and organizational innovations were familiar to, and had been adopted by farmers. The interviews were followed by focus group discussions with farmers to gain further understanding of the social dynamics that contributed to changes in farming practices, as well as to identify relevant socioeconomic and ecological indicators at the household level in relation to the five sustainable livelihood capitals. A field visit was organized to gather further evidence of the changes in practices reported during the interviews and focus group discussions. This study revealed that about seven years after FTVs were distributed, the proportion of conventional vegetable growers decreased from 95.5% to 51%, while agroecological vegetable growers increased from 4.5% to 30% and 19% of the famers started growing organic vegetables. Farmers were motivated to embrace sustainable vegetable methods for financial and health reasons. The study also showed how farmers’ association played a key role in creating favorable conditions for the development of sustainable (agroecological and/or organic) farming. The FTVs taught agroecological knowledge to farmers, many of whom were able to put these ideas into practice.
Keywords
