"This Field is Our Church:" The social and agronomic challenges of knowlegde generation in a participatory soil fertility management project

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the challenges of participatory research in the context of social and agronomic knowledge production. It it based from personal experience of an on-farm research project that dealt with community-based soil fertility management in Western Kenya. The goal was to create an organization that integrated both local and scientific knowledge and experience. However, both groups found that neither participation or knowledge that was both put forth in the project and that emerged from the project was unchanged despite the level of participation. They claim the challenge in participatory research is "to be able to respond effectively with relevant technologies, inputs, and advice."