A novel model to strengthen researcher-farming community engagement

Abstract

Researcher engagement is said to improve collaboration between two parties, hence, improving research outputs. Despite the enormous agricultural research studies, there has been low uptake and ownership of research outputs by farming communities due to the limited engagement efforts between farmers and researchers. This study aimed at designing a model to guide agricultural project researchers in effectively engaging farming communities in study implementation. We used pragmatism research philosophy approach to develop the knowledge about the study. We also used mixed methods to establish requirements for the engagement strategies employed by researcher, we administered a total of 570 questionnaires to 253 Bukedea and 317 to Lira district households, which were selected using random sampling on a 5-scale Likert scale. Quantitative data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) statistical software package to calculate the mean, standard deviation and cross tabulations, thematic analysis for the qualitative analysis. The findings were used to design a model to guide engagement. The model was designed based on the principles of engagement, the effectiveness was assessed using online questionnaires administered to 10 Makerere university researchers and 20 farmers from Bukedea and Lira districts. The study aimed at exploring the existing engagement strategies to establish challenges and recommendations to enhance engagement. The results show that 45% farmers agree that researchers have an understanding of the farming community needs, values as well as communicating study goals and purpose to them, while 51% of researchers agree that they communicate the study goals, purpose and objectives to farmers. Additionally, both farmers and researchers agree that there is interaction between the two parties during study implementation. However, 16% of farmers disagree with researcher having interactions with them. Overall, 20% of farmers reported gaps in researcher engagement with them during study implementation while 73% of researchers agree to engaging farmers during study implementation. There was need to address the challenges identified recommendations given from farmers and researcher. The challenges and recommendations informed the FCRC design model using engagement principles. The model was evaluated using a mobile application to prove its usability and usefulness. Evaluation results show 80% of researchers agree that the FCRC model promotes interaction between the researchers and key project stakeholders which allows for ownership of the project activities and outputs. Usefulness of the model showed in the evaluation results as over 85% of xvi farmers strongly agree to actively participate in research activities to gain knowledge. One of the farmer during a focus group discussion highlighted that “I am happy that we are at last going to be involved at each stage of the project with that procedure adopted.” We recommend evaluation of the model in other sectors for knowledge and information extraction, extended training of researchers and farmers on the relevancy of the model on guiding knowledge extraction and planning engagements. Similarly, we recommend translating the application to local language for easy use by the local farmers and improve interaction between the farmers and the researcher. Finally, the future work to be done is to apply the model to other sectors besides agriculture, translate the research guide to local languages, extend the evaluation to more participants and beyond the study. Future work to extend the model to implementation phase as opposed to only planning.