Agricultural Timelines: history of agricultural innovation and change

Agricultural Timelines

History of agricultural innovation and change

A Timeline is one way of recording the history of agricultural innovation and change in an area.

A horizontal line is used to represent a period of time. Key events during that period are then marked on the line with a symbol and date. Further information about each event is recorded in a box or table. This will give a detailed description of the sources of new ideas and technologies in the area.

	Procedures
	References and Further Reading

Procedures

	Assemble a cross-section of farmers, with experience of the main agricultural enterprises which exist in the area
	Explain the purpose of the activity and agree a list of enterprises which are going to be discussed
	Draw a line on a large piece of paper, or on the ground, representing the time from an agreed date to the present
	Start with the first enterprise: ask participants to say when farmers in this community first began the enterprise; mark this (approximate) date on the timeline; then ask for the following information:
	where did it come from? how, and from whom, did farmers in this area get the knowledge they needed for the enterprise? what are the main changes that have occurred in the way the enterprise is carried out, since it was first introduced into the area? These might include changes in the production technology; changes in storage practices; changes in marketing or consumption patterns for the crop/livestock product then for each change, ask:
	what was the source of the change? in particular, where did the information come from that made the change possible? (This could be internal – e.g. from farmers’ own experiments and experience – or external) when was the change introduced? why did farmers make the change? who first made the change, and how did it then spread to other farmers? were any modifications made to the change? what were these? what have been the advantages and the disadvantages of the change
	What are the main problems which farmers face with this enterprise (these may be to do with marketing, prices, storage – and not necessarily about production).
	What are farmers’ main knowledge and information needs relating to this enterprise?
	Continue the process of questioning for the other enterprises.

References and Further Reading
Ramirez, R. (1997) Understanding Farmers’ Communication Networks: Combining PRA with Agricultural Knowledge Systems Analysis Gatekeeper Series no. 66. London. International Institute for Environment and Development.

For an example, see a timeline drawn up by a group of smallstock keepers in Kenya, as part of a research project, Improving information and communication for smallholder farmers.	view the report
and a brief report on timeline analysis from the same research project	view the report