Experimental by nature: Rice farmers in Ghana

A project in Ghana tried to encourage government extension agents to change their attitudes. Instead of merely teaching new techniques, they were supposed to engage rice farmers in a two-way learning experience. The extension agents accepted some of the project philosophy, but they still thought that the goal of the project was to teach new technology to farmers, rather than to encourage farmer learning and innovation. Even so, the farmers actually did experiment, because it is in their human nature to do so. Some project staff, especially the researchers, did gain more appreciation for farmer experiments. In the future, participatory research should be done with more active involvement from the researchers, instead of leaving much of the daily work in the hands of extensionists. Copyright © 2010 by the Society for Applied Anthropology.