Governments are committed to the Millennium Development Goals, Agenda 21 (Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg summits) and other international agreements which aim, among other things, to cut poverty and hunger in half by 2015. Three-quarters of the poor and hungry live in rural areas. Judicious policies and strategies for sustainable agriculture and rural development are vital to tackle this challenge.

Sustainable agriculture and rural development is not possible without the active participation of the stakeholders who can make it happen: national and local authorities, local communities, the private sector and civil society organizations. They must work together at the local (municipal) and territorial (district or provincial) levels, but must also be knowledgeable of national priorities and resources that can be leveraged for their local development effort. They must be enabled to take a more active part in determining these national priorities and agreeing on the trade-offs involved. It is particularly important to involve marginalized groups such as the poor, landless, women, youth, elderly and indigenous peoples, who are the ones who should benefit the most.

All of the above depend on the ability of national governments to develop a vision and long-term strategy and to strengthen the enabling policy, legal and institutional frameworks for such local development. Strong political and administrative support for sustainable agriculture and rural development is necessary.

FAO’s Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development-Farming Systems Evolution (SARD-FSE) project has developed a procedure to enable local people and other stakeholders to contribute to appropriate policies, technologies and other interventions that address the economic, social, cultural and environmental priorities of local communities, including the rural poor and marginalized people. It provides decision-support tools and resources for decision makers and other stakeholders to use in diagnosing the current situation in rural areas and their farming systems and to analyze policy, legal and institutional priority actions to improve them. This Information Brief summarizes the procedure.

The participatory policy development procedure was based on the draft guidelines adapted for use by the three case study teams and improved with the lessons learned and feedback received from professionals who participated in the national and regional workshops sponsored by the project. The project case studies focused on three major farming systems in different regions of the world:•• The maize/bean-based farming system in the departments of Lempira Sur and Santa Barbara, Honduras. This is a traditional food production system of Central America, dating back to the pre-Columbian period.•• The cereal/root-crop based farming system in the region of Sikasso in southern Mali. This system is crucial for food security and poverty reduction in West Africa. In the case of Mali, it is closely intertwined with the cotton production industry.•• The lowland rice-based farming system in Nueva Ecija in central Luzon, Philippines. This type of system feeds 860 million people in the world.

Expected benefitsThis procedure allows all stakeholders to express their aspirations, define their problems, discuss their differences and trade-offs, and use their unique knowledge, resources and networks to contribute to realistic solutions. The procedure can generate various benefits:•• It empowers local stakeholders to participate in and influence the design, implementation and evaluation of policies and institutions that increase agricultural productivity and food security, boost the local economy and protect the local environment.•• It is a cost effective means for participation and communication among local stakeholders, marginalized groups, national policy makers and donors in planning local development initiatives.•• It improves the monitoring of progress of initiatives through the use of local indicators reflecting the real situation.•• Local decision makers and stakeholders can more easily report on critical issues to national decision makers and other stakeholders, including on macro-level issues such as commodity prices, infrastructure investment, and trade and marketing policies.•• It promotes the effective mobilization and use of resources for local development through better coordination, less duplication of efforts and higher pay-off of national, local and externally funded programmes. •• It promotes participatory democratic processes that can pave the way for enhanced understanding and reconciliation of their differences and trade-offs, social cohesion and equity, and consequently more peace and prosperity in rural areas.

A meeting of People’s Participation Programme group delegatesin Matale district of Sri Lanka

The SARD-Farming Systems Evolution project of FAO (GCP/INT/819/MUL) aims to strengthen the ability of government and non-government stakeholders to improve policies and institutions to achieve sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD).

The project studied how selected farming systems in Honduras, Mali and the Philippines had evolved over the long term. It identified their driving forces, current strengths and weaknesses, and outlined future policy priorities and actions for sustainable agriculture and rural development.

The project used participatory, bottom-up approaches to ensure that the views of stakeholders at all levels, including local people, were taken into account, and integrates the cultural, social, economic and environmental dimensions in the analysis of sustainability.

The SARD-FSE project, supported by the governments of France and Japan, was implemented with the Programme for Sustainable Agriculture on Sloping Lands of Central America (PASOLAC) in Honduras, the Institute of Rural Economics (IER) in Mali and the Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC) in the Philippines.

SARD-Farming Systems Evolution projectFood and Agriculture Organization of the United NationsViale delle Terme di Caracalla, Rome, Italywww.fao.org/sard

7. Information note on SARD Farming System Evolution Guidelines

SARD – Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development – is a people-centred approach that focuses on improving livelihoods and satisfying the needs of current and future generations. It strives to orient policy, institutional and technological change for the sustainable management of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, natural resources, and other rural activities. It rests on four pillars: environment, economic, social and cultural.

Briefs in this series:

1. Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development: the Policy Challenge2. Engaging stakeholders in policy development for agriculture and rural development3. Strengthening sustainable agricultural and rural enterprises4. Decentralization and sustainable agriculture and rural development5. Some policy priorities for sustainable agriculture and rural development 6. Participatory monitoring

and evaluation for sustainable agriculture and rural development

7. Information note on SARD Farming System Evolution Guidelines

The SARD-Farming Systems Evolution project is supported by the governments of France andJapan

SARD BRIEF

7. Information note on SARD Farming System Evolution Guidelines

SARD BRIEF

This SARD brief is based on the SARD-Farming Systems Evolution project of the Rural Development Division of FAO, which studied major farming systems in Honduras, Mali and the Philippines to find ways to improve policies and institutions to achieve sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD).

7. Information note on SARD Farming System Evolution Guidelines

MORE INFORMATION• FAO, SARD-FSE case studies and regional workshops: www.fao.org/sard

7. Information note on SARD Farming System Evolution Guidelines

STEPS FOR PARTICIPATORY POLICY DEVELOPMENT

1. Get organized 2. Select the focus area3. Analyze the current situation4. Identify scenarios for the future5. Identify potential policy changes

Where to get the Participatory Policy Development manualFAO 2005. Participatory policy development for sustainable agriculture and rural development. Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development-Farming Systems Evolution project, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. 65 p.You can request a copy from: the Participation Website, Rural Institutions & Participation Service, Rural Development Division, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy. IWG-PA-Webbox@fao.orgYou can download also the document from www.fao.org/sard

Steps for participatory policy developmentSustainable agriculture and rural development is people-centred and aims to ensure an agricultural and rural sector that is productive, viable, and capable of satisfying the economic, social and cultural aspirations of rural people, and managing the natural resources sustainably so as not to compromise the ability of future generations to do the same. For this to be achieved, a coherent and integrated set of public policies, institutions, programmes, technologies, investments and key interventions is needed. These must be driven at central and local government levels with the active participation of all stakeholders who bring different interests, knowledge, resources and information networks that need to be recognized and reconciled in the policy development process.

The procedure developed through the FAO case studies falls into five steps:1. Get organized 2. Select the focus area3. Analyze the current situation4. Identify scenarios for the future5. Identify potential policy changes

Step 1: Get organized, includes forming a team to manage the policy development process, forming a steering committee of representatives of key stakeholders, identifying partners and stakeholders, and determining the approach you will use and obtaining the resources you will need.

Step 2: Select the focus area, involves deciding what area to study in the process. This may be a particular policy area (such as agricultural trade), a commodity (such as sugar), a farming system (as in the FAO case studies), or region of the country. This step includes deciding on criteria to select this focus area, gathering data on the topics, initial discussions with stakeholders and with local authorities, and identifying the locations for detailed case studies or interactions with local stakeholders.

Step 3: Analyze the current situation, includes asking different groups of local people representing varying perspectives and interests, to identify their development goals,identifying indicators to measure progress towards these goals, analyzing the current situation in agriculture and rural development at national, regional and local levels, and diagnosing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for sustainability.

Step 4: Identify scenarios for the future, consists of identifying long-term trends that affect the local area, and then identifying the causes and driving forces of these trends. Participants then draw up two scenarios for the medium-term future. One scenario assumes “business-as-usual”, where the long-term trends continue. The other is an “optimistic” scenario: a plausible alternative which is closer to the development goals that local stakeholders themselves identified earlier.

Step 5: Identify potential policy changes, involves identifying strategic and specific objectives, analyzing their differences and trade-offs for different population groups, andthen drawing up a list of policy measures that will help achieve these objectives. These measures are then prioritized and recommended for follow-up action by the appropriate government units and other development agencies.The results of the policy development process are then checked back with the local stakeholders to make sure that they are valid, and submitted to national-level decision makers for approval and implementation.

Tools for policy developmentThe participatory policy development process requires a series of workshops and meetings with stakeholders at different levels: national, regional and local. These stakeholders may include government and NGO staff, private sector representatives, personnel of universities, research, extension and service agencies, local officials, farmers and other members of the community. It is important to ensure that marginalized groups such as women, the very poor, young and elderly people, and the indigenous minorities are involved in the discussions. Various tools and techniques can be used in this process.

They include:• Checklist of indicators for sustainable agriculture and sustainable rural development • Brainstorming to generate ideas, priorities, etc.• Diagramming and mapping techniques• Semi-structured interviews• Card sorting• Focus group discussion• Stakeholder analysis • Historical trends and milestones • SWOT analysis • Agri-food value chain analysis• Scenario analysis• Stakeholder negotiation encounters• Policy action matrix• Writeshops• Project logical framework analysis

The Participatory policy development for sustainable agriculture and rural development manual describes each of these approaches.

Regional workshop - Evolution of farming systems for sustainable agriculture and rural development project

Antipolo City, Philippines, July 2004

India: Empowering farmers to use available farm

resources

Participatory approachesin Colombia

Maize cultivation in Mali

SARD: A central processfor economic growth and

rural development

The procedure is described in detail in a manual for local authorities, non-governmental organizations and other development agencies working at the regional and local levels. The manual, Participatory policy development for sustainable agriculture and rural development is designed for national policy makers, donors, researchers and educators who are concerned with policy and institutional issues in rural areas.

SARD BRIEF SARD BRIEF

7. Information note on SARD Farming System Evolution Guidelines

MORE INFORMATION• FAO, SARD-FSE case studies and regional workshops: www.fao.org/sard

7. Information note on SARD Farming System Evolution Guidelines

STEPS FOR PARTICIPATORY POLICY DEVELOPMENT

1. Get organized 2. Select the focus area3. Analyze the current situation4. Identify scenarios for the future5. Identify potential policy changes

Where to get the Participatory Policy Development manualFAO 2005. Participatory policy development for sustainable agriculture and rural development. Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development-Farming Systems Evolution project, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. 65 p.You can request a copy from: the Participation Website, Rural Institutions & Participation Service, Rural Development Division, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy. IWG-PA-Webbox@fao.orgYou can download also the document from www.fao.org/sard

Steps for participatory policy developmentSustainable agriculture and rural development is people-centred and aims to ensure an agricultural and rural sector that is productive, viable, and capable of satisfying the economic, social and cultural aspirations of rural people, and managing the natural resources sustainably so as not to compromise the ability of future generations to do the same. For this to be achieved, a coherent and integrated set of public policies, institutions, programmes, technologies, investments and key interventions is needed. These must be driven at central and local government levels with the active participation of all stakeholders who bring different interests, knowledge, resources and information networks that need to be recognized and reconciled in the policy development process.

The procedure developed through the FAO case studies falls into five steps:1. Get organized 2. Select the focus area3. Analyze the current situation4. Identify scenarios for the future5. Identify potential policy changes

Step 1: Get organized, includes forming a team to manage the policy development process, forming a steering committee of representatives of key stakeholders, identifying partners and stakeholders, and determining the approach you will use and obtaining the resources you will need.

Step 2: Select the focus area, involves deciding what area to study in the process. This may be a particular policy area (such as agricultural trade), a commodity (such as sugar), a farming system (as in the FAO case studies), or region of the country. This step includes deciding on criteria to select this focus area, gathering data on the topics, initial discussions with stakeholders and with local authorities, and identifying the locations for detailed case studies or interactions with local stakeholders.

Step 3: Analyze the current situation, includes asking different groups of local people representing varying perspectives and interests, to identify their development goals,identifying indicators to measure progress towards these goals, analyzing the current situation in agriculture and rural development at national, regional and local levels, and diagnosing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for sustainability.

Step 4: Identify scenarios for the future, consists of identifying long-term trends that affect the local area, and then identifying the causes and driving forces of these trends. Participants then draw up two scenarios for the medium-term future. One scenario assumes “business-as-usual”, where the long-term trends continue. The other is an “optimistic” scenario: a plausible alternative which is closer to the development goals that local stakeholders themselves identified earlier.

Step 5: Identify potential policy changes, involves identifying strategic and specific objectives, analyzing their differences and trade-offs for different population groups, andthen drawing up a list of policy measures that will help achieve these objectives. These measures are then prioritized and recommended for follow-up action by the appropriate government units and other development agencies.The results of the policy development process are then checked back with the local stakeholders to make sure that they are valid, and submitted to national-level decision makers for approval and implementation.

Tools for policy developmentThe participatory policy development process requires a series of workshops and meetings with stakeholders at different levels: national, regional and local. These stakeholders may include government and NGO staff, private sector representatives, personnel of universities, research, extension and service agencies, local officials, farmers and other members of the community. It is important to ensure that marginalized groups such as women, the very poor, young and elderly people, and the indigenous minorities are involved in the discussions. Various tools and techniques can be used in this process.

They include:• Checklist of indicators for sustainable agriculture and sustainable rural development • Brainstorming to generate ideas, priorities, etc.• Diagramming and mapping techniques• Semi-structured interviews• Card sorting• Focus group discussion• Stakeholder analysis • Historical trends and milestones • SWOT analysis • Agri-food value chain analysis• Scenario analysis• Stakeholder negotiation encounters• Policy action matrix• Writeshops• Project logical framework analysis

The Participatory policy development for sustainable agriculture and rural development manual describes each of these approaches.

Regional workshop - Evolution of farming systems for sustainable agriculture and rural development project

Antipolo City, Philippines, July 2004

India: Empowering farmers to use available farm

resources

Participatory approachesin Colombia

Maize cultivation in Mali

SARD: A central processfor economic growth and

rural development

The procedure is described in detail in a manual for local authorities, non-governmental organizations and other development agencies working at the regional and local levels. The manual, Participatory policy development for sustainable agriculture and rural development is designed for national policy makers, donors, researchers and educators who are concerned with policy and institutional issues in rural areas.

SARD BRIEF SARD BRIEF

Governments are committed to the Millennium Development Goals, Agenda 21 (Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg summits) and other international agreements which aim, among other things, to cut poverty and hunger in half by 2015. Three-quarters of the poor and hungry live in rural areas. Judicious policies and strategies for sustainable agriculture and rural development are vital to tackle this challenge.

Sustainable agriculture and rural development is not possible without the active participation of the stakeholders who can make it happen: national and local authorities, local communities, the private sector and civil society organizations. They must work together at the local (municipal) and territorial (district or provincial) levels, but must also be knowledgeable of national priorities and resources that can be leveraged for their local development effort. They must be enabled to take a more active part in determining these national priorities and agreeing on the trade-offs involved. It is particularly important to involve marginalized groups such as the poor, landless, women, youth, elderly and indigenous peoples, who are the ones who should benefit the most.

All of the above depend on the ability of national governments to develop a vision and long-term strategy and to strengthen the enabling policy, legal and institutional frameworks for such local development. Strong political and administrative support for sustainable agriculture and rural development is necessary.

FAO’s Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development-Farming Systems Evolution (SARD-FSE) project has developed a procedure to enable local people and other stakeholders to contribute to appropriate policies, technologies and other interventions that address the economic, social, cultural and environmental priorities of local communities, including the rural poor and marginalized people. It provides decision-support tools and resources for decision makers and other stakeholders to use in diagnosing the current situation in rural areas and their farming systems and to analyze policy, legal and institutional priority actions to improve them. This Information Brief summarizes the procedure.

The participatory policy development procedure was based on the draft guidelines adapted for use by the three case study teams and improved with the lessons learned and feedback received from professionals who participated in the national and regional workshops sponsored by the project. The project case studies focused on three major farming systems in different regions of the world:•• The maize/bean-based farming system in the departments of Lempira Sur and Santa Barbara, Honduras. This is a traditional food production system of Central America, dating back to the pre-Columbian period.•• The cereal/root-crop based farming system in the region of Sikasso in southern Mali. This system is crucial for food security and poverty reduction in West Africa. In the case of Mali, it is closely intertwined with the cotton production industry.•• The lowland rice-based farming system in Nueva Ecija in central Luzon, Philippines. This type of system feeds 860 million people in the world.

Expected benefitsThis procedure allows all stakeholders to express their aspirations, define their problems, discuss their differences and trade-offs, and use their unique knowledge, resources and networks to contribute to realistic solutions. The procedure can generate various benefits:•• It empowers local stakeholders to participate in and influence the design, implementation and evaluation of policies and institutions that increase agricultural productivity and food security, boost the local economy and protect the local environment.•• It is a cost effective means for participation and communication among local stakeholders, marginalized groups, national policy makers and donors in planning local development initiatives.•• It improves the monitoring of progress of initiatives through the use of local indicators reflecting the real situation.•• Local decision makers and stakeholders can more easily report on critical issues to national decision makers and other stakeholders, including on macro-level issues such as commodity prices, infrastructure investment, and trade and marketing policies.•• It promotes the effective mobilization and use of resources for local development through better coordination, less duplication of efforts and higher pay-off of national, local and externally funded programmes. •• It promotes participatory democratic processes that can pave the way for enhanced understanding and reconciliation of their differences and trade-offs, social cohesion and equity, and consequently more peace and prosperity in rural areas.

A meeting of People’s Participation Programme group delegatesin Matale district of Sri Lanka

The SARD-Farming Systems Evolution project of FAO (GCP/INT/819/MUL) aims to strengthen the ability of government and non-government stakeholders to improve policies and institutions to achieve sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD).

The project studied how selected farming systems in Honduras, Mali and the Philippines had evolved over the long term. It identified their driving forces, current strengths and weaknesses, and outlined future policy priorities and actions for sustainable agriculture and rural development.

The project used participatory, bottom-up approaches to ensure that the views of stakeholders at all levels, including local people, were taken into account, and integrates the cultural, social, economic and environmental dimensions in the analysis of sustainability.

The SARD-FSE project, supported by the governments of France and Japan, was implemented with the Programme for Sustainable Agriculture on Sloping Lands of Central America (PASOLAC) in Honduras, the Institute of Rural Economics (IER) in Mali and the Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC) in the Philippines.

SARD-Farming Systems Evolution projectFood and Agriculture Organization of the United NationsViale delle Terme di Caracalla, Rome, Italywww.fao.org/sard

7. Information note on SARD Farming System Evolution Guidelines

SARD – Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development – is a people-centred approach that focuses on improving livelihoods and satisfying the needs of current and future generations. It strives to orient policy, institutional and technological change for the sustainable management of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, natural resources, and other rural activities. It rests on four pillars: environment, economic, social and cultural.

Briefs in this series:

1. Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development: the Policy Challenge2. Engaging stakeholders in policy development for agriculture and rural development3. Strengthening sustainable agricultural and rural enterprises4. Decentralization and sustainable agriculture and rural development5. Some policy priorities for sustainable agriculture and rural development 6. Participatory monitoring

and evaluation for sustainable agriculture and rural development

7. Information note on SARD Farming System Evolution Guidelines

The SARD-Farming Systems Evolution project is supported by the governments of France andJapan

SARD BRIEF

7. Information note on SARD Farming System Evolution Guidelines

SARD BRIEF

This SARD brief is based on the SARD-Farming Systems Evolution project of the Rural Development Division of FAO, which studied major farming systems in Honduras, Mali and the Philippines to find ways to improve policies and institutions to achieve sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD).