Diversified agriculture research project (DARP), project no. 383-0058 : final evaluation

The project has been very effective and worthwhile, particularly after its redesign in 1990 in response to the second interim evaluation. The DOA's capacity to develop and transfer useful agricultural technology to farmers has been significantly strengthened through the addition of highly trained personnel, the purchase of construction and technical equipment, the Special Projects Fund, and long- and short-term TA. New varieties of eight different SFCs have been developed and released, and a technical guide for cultivating SFCs and other crops has been produced. Data on technology adoption by farmers are scarce, but there is clear evidence of field impact, e.g., mungbean and cowpea cultivation under scarce water conditions and use of improved onion storage techniques. Although full realization of the project's income, employment and nutrition goals will take time, benefits have already begun to accrue. Yields varied little between 1985-92, but area planted to mungbean, big onion, and cowpea increased significantly. Income and employment increased apace, while nutrition will improve with greater availability of protein-rich mungbeans and cowpea. During the project, the Government of Sri Lanka (GSL) adopted a number of policy shifts relating to SFC promotion, and the use of more market-oriented instruments to do so. The project responded, particularly since its extension, by emphasizing: use of private sector seed enterprises to replace DOA seed production; high-value horticultural export crops rather than low-value field crops; market satisfaction rather than import substitution; demand-driven, rather than scientist-set research priorities; farm incomes and employment rather than food production; and use of mass communications for technology transfer. These strategy shifts produced good results. Private sector capacity for seed production and marketing; the private sector satisfied 10% of the demand for purchased rice seed in one season and is expected to provide 25% by the end of Yala (the summer rainy seasons), 1993 and 98% by Yala, 1994. Private enterprises now produce and market twice as much chili seed as the DOA and will produce five times as much next year. The project's main drawback, and the DOA's chief area of weakness, was inadequate attention to farm-level impacts and market concerns in its research planning. The DOA needs a good system for measuring and reporting field-level impacts; lack of one inhibited project evaluation and prevents the DOA from receiving credit for its work. The DOA also needs to find new ways to finance the recurrent costs which were picked up by the project. All in all, however, it appears that the substance of the A.I.D. project will be sustained under the DOA. Lessons learned include the following. (1) Emphasizing sustainability in rice production does not preclude attention to other crops. (2) Lack of technology was just one factor limiting production of SFCs; profitability, derived from market demand and organization, was and remains critical. (3) Use of the World Bank's Training and Visit (T&V) extension system proved costly and unsustainable. (4) By evolving along with changing GSL policy, the project improved its impact. (5) An undesirable effect of donor funding is insulation from the domestic funding competition which requires client participation in agency agenda setting. (6) Baseline surveys seldom fulfill their objectives; periodic monitoring using sampling techniques is preferable.