UC Davis

Agricultural extension education traditionally follows a linear format, through a top-down dissemination of academic knowledge and technologies from researchers to extension officers to farmers (Haug, 1999). In this model, there is little space for farmers to play an active role in their own learning development. Shifts in extension methodologies have begun to include farmers in project planning and implementation using participatory tools, such as model farmers and model farm visits. Peer-to-peer learning has the potential to eliminate the hierarchy in the traditional extension approach and enhance learning for farmers on both sides. One organization that works with their farmers using these tools is Yale University’s School of the Environment’s Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative (ELTI). Since 2009, their Panama program has worked with a Panamanian cattle ranchers association on implementing silvopastoral practices on their cattle farms. The objectives of this study are to investigate the experiences of model farmers in ELTI’s model, determine how these farmers view their role as co-facilitators working with visiting farmers, and explore how ELTI’s participatory model facilitates farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchanges. Our study findings suggest that model farmers do not always view themselves as teachers in a lesson with students, but rather sharers in an informal knowledge exchange with their peers. Here we report on the results of a summer-long phenomenological study of the model and discuss the three themes that emerged in this study: (1) a knowledge exchange among model farmers and visiting farmers is occurring, although it is not exactly a horizontal exchange among peers; (2) model farmers are thinking about, and in some instances applying, some of the practices and cultivos shared with them by the visiting farmers; and (3) model farmers enjoy this knowledge exchange, and are asking for more opportunities to engage with visiting farmers in different settings. Future work in this area should explore ways to increase opportunities for model and visiting farmers to exchange knowledge with one another.