Central America : small-farmer cropping systems

This report evaluates a research project to increase small-farmer production in Central America by developing improved cropping practices. The Small Farmer Cropping Systems Project (SFCS) supported research by the Tropical Agriculture Research and Training Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica on the traditional multicropping systems used by over 4 million small farmers in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Although progress was slow in El Salvador and Guatemala, the project succeeded in implementing on-farm research and developing area-specific recommendations. The major shortcoming of the 5-year project was that it concentrated on the research process itself rather than on verifying and disseminating results. Farmer impact was thus limited to the 75 small farmers on whose farms research was conducted. Farmers in Nicaragua and Guatemala were active participants, whereas those in Costa Rica and Honduras remained largely ignorant of the project and disinterested in adopting alternative systems. Test farm yields increased in every country but Guatemala. CATIE's staff, training, and support capabilities were greatly improved and most national agricultural institutions involved were positively affected. The team concluded that SFCS is a replicable model capable of significantly improving the lot of the small farmer. Recommendations for future projects are: (1) disseminate research results; (2) stress an interdisciplinary approach; (3) seek the active participation of farmers; (4) improve SFCS methodology by upgrading farm selection criteria, clarifying the relationship between on-farm and central station experiments, and increasing attention to the non-agronomic aspects of small farm systems; (5) promote maximum interagency collaboration; and (6) shorten the time lag between research, verification, and dissemination. Appendices on evaluation methodology, project impact on CATIE, and CATIE's production data are included, as are reports on Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica.