A discredited variety, a sceptical chair and women outside the cooperative
An extension officer in a rain-fed block must promote a new short-duration, blight-tolerant rice variety to 180 farm households. Two seasons ago a different 'improved' variety failed badly here: untreated seed, a false promise of earliness, and lodging after unseasonal rain cost several families part of their crop. The seed dealer who sold it is still in the village. About 40 households in the neighbouring block grew the new variety last season and got roughly 15% more yield with two fewer irrigations, but nobody here has seen those plots. The cooperative chair, who lost money on the earlier variety, has told members the new seed is 'the same grain in a new bag'. Women do most of the transplanting and weeding but cannot be cooperative members under its current rules. The officer has one season, one 0.2-hectare demonstration plot with free seed for 25 households, and a target of 60 adopting households.
1. Select and justify the extension methods and their sequence for this season. Explain what you would not rely on.
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Sequence
- Peer testimony first. Bring two of the 40 neighbouring growers - with their yield records and, if possible, unharvested bundles - to a field day at the demonstration plot. A farmer saying 'I grew it and cut two irrigations' answers 'the same grain in a new bag' far better than an officer's claim.
- A 0.2 ha demonstration plot in the village, run by a farmer committee. Visible from the path, split into new variety versus local check, same transplanting date, same fertiliser - a fair comparison, not a show plot.
- Result demonstrations at about 30 and 60 days and at harvest, with field days timed to tillering and to maturity. Measure what farmers care about: yield per unit area, number of irrigations, lodging, days to maturity, seed cost.
- Follow-up: the 25 free-seed households are each paired with a non-recipient neighbour, so the seed is observed rather than merely received. A leaflet in the local language carrying the plot's actual numbers.
Not to rely on: radio alone, a lecture in the cooperative hall, or a leaflet drop. After the earlier failure the officer's word has little credit, and one rumour from the dealer will beat any poster. Methods were chosen for credibility, not reach.
2. Design the demonstration plot so it produces evidence a sceptical audience will accept. Specify what is measured and who records it.
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Layout: 0.2 ha split into four plots of 0.05 ha - new variety with recommended practice, new variety with farmer practice, local check with recommended practice, local check with farmer practice. This separates the seed effect from the management effect, which is exactly what sceptics will claim if only one comparison is shown. Same field, same transplanting date, same irrigation source, visible bunds, and a signboard naming the varieties and the date.
Measurements - keep to six numbers: plant height at 30 days; tiller count; days to 50% flowering; lodging score after any storm; number of irrigations; grain yield from a measured 5 m² quadrat per plot (three samples, weighed on the same scales). Add cost of cultivation if the committee wants it.
Recording: a five-person farmer committee does the sampling and signs the record book, including at least two women who do the transplanting and weeding. The officer weighs but does not announce the figures. Records stay in the village, not the office, so anyone can inspect them between visits.
Credibility: thresh and weigh in public at harvest; anyone who disputes a figure may re-weigh the same bag. Present no projected or borrowed numbers - only what came off this field. One publicly verified harvest here outweighs ten leaflets.
3. How would you handle the chair's opposition and the exclusion of women from the cooperative, without jeopardising the 60-household target?
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The chair. Do not confront him publicly. Meet him first, ask what went wrong with the earlier variety, and concede the parts that were true - the seed was untreated and lodging was real. Then invite him to chair the plot committee and to nominate the source of the check-plot seed. If he is inside the demonstration he cannot dismiss it; if he stays outside while the harvest figures are public, his objection costs him credibility rather than costing the programme. Keep the dealer out of this season's seed supply: source the 25 households' seed directly, with a lot number and a germination test, and explain why.
Women. Since they cannot be cooperative members, build a parallel channel rather than waiting for the rules: a women's transplanting group of about 15 with its own demonstration strip, meetings at a time and place they can actually attend, and a woman farmer as one of the two peer speakers. Ask the cooperative to table a membership change at its next meeting, but do not make the season's target depend on it.
The 60-household target. 25 seed households + 25 paired neighbours + about 10 sign-ups from the field day is realistic. Count adoption only when the seed is in the ground, not when a hand is raised at a meeting - otherwise the report will claim 60 and the next season will show far fewer.