Schmidt, Peter

This article is a case study of a successful farmer field school in West Java Indonesia. It is successful because the farmers organise, finance and facilitate their gatherings, and have become the owners of their extension program. Government officials are present at the gatherings but sit silently in the background.

This report discusses three agricultural devlopment projects in Africa, their participatory approaches and their implications at policy level. The analysis was carried out in the context of donor consultation on agricultural extension services in Africa and includes underlying principles of participation, methods to make participation work and ways for shaping conditions favourable for participation.

Western notions of "participation" and "private initiative" are alien concepts in some of the post communist countries. In view of this, this paper discusses the challenges for participatory approaches in such societies.