CIP and CARE in Peru

Agric Hum Values DOI 10.1007/s10460-007-9108-7

Organizational learning through participatory research: CIP and CARE in Peru Oscar Ortiz Æ Guillermo Frias Æ Raul Ho Æ Hector Cisneros Æ Rebecca Nelson Æ Renee Castillo Æ Ricardo Orrego Æ Willy Pradel Æ Jesus Alcazar Æ Mario Bazań

Accepted: 21 July 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract Participatory research (PR) has been analyzed and documented from different points of view, with emphasis on the benefits generated for farmers. The effect of PR on organizational learning has, however, received little attention. This paper analyzes the interaction between a research and a development institution, the International Potato Center (CIP) and CARE in Peru, respectively, and makes the case that PR can contribute to creating a collaborative learning environment among organizations. The paper describes the evolution of the inter-institutional collaborative environment between the two institutions for more than a decade, including an informationtransfer period (1993–1996), an action-learning period (1997–2002), and a social-learning period (2003–2007). Several lessons learned from each period are described, as are changes in institutional contexts and stakeholders’

O. Ortiz (&) R. Orrego W. Pradel J. Alcazar International Potato Center, Apartado 1558, Lima 12, Peru e-mail: [email protected] G. Frias R. Castillo CARE-Peru, Cajamarca, Peru R. Ho Sustainable Development Area, South America Regional Office, SAMRO-Oxfam Ame´rica, Lima, Peru H. Cisneros Consortium for Sustainable Development of the Andes (CONDESAN), Lima, Peru R. Nelson The McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crop Research Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA M. Bazań Municipality of Banõs del Inca, Cajamarca, Peru

perceptions. The case shows that research and development-oriented organizations can interact fruitfully using PR as a mechanism to promote learning, flexibility in interactions, and innovation. Interactions foster the diffusion of information and the sharing of tacit knowledge within and between organizations, which in turn influences behavior. However, the paper also argues that long-term inter-organizational interactions are needed to facilitate learning, which can be used to influence the way organizations implement their interventions in a constantly changing environment. Keywords Impact assessment Institutional learning Interactive learning Participatory research Peru

Abbreviations CIP International Potato Center FFS Farmer field schools PR Participatory research

Introduction Links between research and development organizations are frequently weak or absent in developing countries, and the need for strengthening the interaction between these organizations has been pointed out by several authors (Biggs 1981; Reddy 1986; Kaimowitz et al. 1990). In response to this, partnership approaches have been pointed out as appropriate mechanisms for bringing together institutions with different comparative advantages that work towards common objectives (Thrupp 1996). The identification of suitable mechanisms for interaction among agriculture-related organizations remains a challenge.

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Participatory research (PR)—in its different forms—has usually been perceived as bringing more benefits for the final users of the technologies, who are the farmers involved in the research process. While the experience of conducting PR can also bring benefits to other actors such as field staff, development practitioners, researchers and organizations, there is less evidence in the literature about what PR means to these actors, particularly to organizational actors. Currently, institutions are interested in learning from their experiences, particularly when new challenges are faced, such as finding ways to contribute more efficiently to the Millennium Development Goals.1 Contributing, for example, to the reduction of poverty and hunger requires the participation of multiple organizational actors, which in turn would require efficient mechanisms for collaboration. This paper aims at analyzing how the International Potato Center (CIP) and CARE-Peru have worked collaboratively. Literature highlights the importance of organizational learning and the process has been described relatively well in the private sector. However, there is limited information about how this process occurs in agricultural research and development organizations, particularly presenting information of a long-term relationship of more than a decade, which allows the exploration of different stages in the relationship. Therefore, the main research questions the paper addresses are how the inter-organizational learning process of CIP (a research organization) and CARE (an international development NGO) has occurred over the years, what the role of PR has been in the learning process, and what lessons can be extracted from more than a decade of collaboration between these two organizations. To answer these questions, five workshops were conducted in 2004 and 2005, involving a total of eight staff members from CIP and 10 from CARE. Interviews with key informants (a total of 10) who did not participate in the workshops but who were related either from management or fieldwork standpoints were also included. It was possible to access information from a total of 18 staff members from both organizations, which represents at least 60% of the total staff members who participated in the collaborative experience. In addition, secondary information was 1

In its new vision, CIP indicates that agricultural research can contribute to the Millennium Development Goals and Targets (MDGs and MDTs respectively) defined by the international community under the leadership of the United Nations. Among the eight goals and 18 targets in the list, CIP agreed to prioritize its contribution to reduce poverty (Target 1), hunger (Target 2), under-five mortality rate (Target 5), and maternal mortality rate (Target 6), to contribute to the integration of principles of sustainable development into country policies (Target 9), to improve the lives of slum dwellers (Target 11), to address the special needs of less developed countries (Target 13), and to contribute to make available the benefits of new technologies (CIP 2004).

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reviewed, such as formal documents or internal reports from the institutions. The authors of the paper analyzed information from the different sources and conducted a retrospective analysis to identify stages of the interaction and the main lessons, and to understand how inter-organizational learning between CIP and CARE has occurred.

Organizational learning and participatory research (PR) Some decades ago, innovation was thought to be the result of a linear process, where there were clearly identifiable sources and users of innovations (Kuby 2003). Research systems had the main role of developing technological innovations, extension systems were perceived to be the delivery mechanism, and farmers were the users of the new technologies. However, in recent years, government research systems have been reduced in several developing countries, and the number of new sources of information, knowledge and innovation has increased, including, for example, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private sector, farmer, and other civil society organizations. In the case of Peru, this new situation has generated the need for inter-organizational interaction for more coordinated delivery of useful information for farmers (Ortiz 2006). The concept of learning institutions (Hall et al. 2003; Watts et al. 2003) has been discussed to explain a desirable characteristic of modern organizations that continuously adapt their internal structures to the external environment. The adaptation should be the result of reflecting on experiences and learning from interaction, taking into consideration the contexts in which organizations operate. ‘‘Interactive learning’’ has been highlighted as a process by which organizations learn through interaction, and over time they learn how to learn better. However, the process of interactive learning or how agriculture-related organizations financed by public funds learn to learn better has not been explored sufficiently in the literature. Inter-institutional or inter-organizational learning is part of a wider concept related to the innovation systems approach (Lundvall et al. 2002; Hall et al. 2004; Gurung and Menter 2004), which proposes that innovation occurs when organizations interact and exchange information and knowledge. Research organizations are not the only entities able to generate innovation (new and improved ways of solving problems); entrepreneurial and non-governmental organizations from both the public and private sectors can be driving forces for innovation. Additionally, interactive learning through the formation of ‘‘learning communities of practice’’ (Brown and Duguid 1991; Halding-Herrgard 2000; Smith 2001), is recognized as a factor that facilitates organizational learning, and is essential for promoting

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innovation. The concept of ‘‘learning alliances’’ has also been explored in the agricultural sector as mechanisms for scaling out (Lundy 2004). Nonaka (1994) analyzed the approach of learning cycles for knowledge generation, focusing on business organizations, pointing out that continuous cycles of transformation are needed to generate knowledge. Transforming experience into knowledge requires transforming the knowledge generated by individuals into forms useful to others. As Nonaka (1994, p. 27) indicates ‘‘…the process of organizational knowledge creation is a never-ending, circular process that is not confined to the organization but includes many interfaces with the environment.’’ Using the terms of Polanyi (1966), people develop ‘‘tacit’’ knowledge through experience, which is something that remains within individuals. Tacit knowledge is shared through face-to-face contacts (we called it osmosis of information in the paper) or by transforming it into ‘‘explicit’’ or encoded knowledge in documents or other forms of codification. Nonaka explores knowledge generation within organizations but does not explain how this process occurs among organizations. However, the principles of transforming tacit into explicit knowledge could be equally applicable when organizations work collaboratively. For this purpose, the need to work with a long-term approach for collaboration, called ‘‘long-termism’’ by Lundvall et al. (2002), is regarded as a precondition to promoting interactive learning, because, as Hall et al. (2003) indicate, time provides social actors the opportunity to learn how to learn better, which is a key property of social systems. The different perspectives of learning among the actors involved, however, influence the process. For example, the different perspectives between researchers and development partners; the former being more interested in theoretical, conceptual, and methodological learning, whereas the latter more interested in practical applications or solutions (Roper 2002). Hence, mechanisms to facilitate a common ground are needed, and PR has the potential to contribute to common understanding. There is an extensive literature related to PR, justifying it from different perspectives. Particular emphasis is placed on its benefits as a vehicle for incorporating farmer perspectives in the research process and improving the possibility of developing suitable technologies, placing emphasis on developing farmers’ own research processes (Okali et al. 1994; Selener 1997; Johnson et al. 2003). It has also been pointed out that PR fosters empowerment and strengthens social and human capital at the individual farmer level. In summary, in most studies, the importance of PR is justified through the benefits farmers receive, but few studies have focused on the importance of PR as a learning mechanism for organizations or individuals within organizations, which could be regarded as the contribution of PR to organizational learning.

Lilja et al. (2004) highlight the role of PR for scaling up the impact of agricultural research, mentioning some cases of collaboration between research and development oriented organizations. However, it is not easy to find cases that document how organizational learning occurs as a result of PR. One of the problems is that organizations tend to focus on implementing PR at field level, aiming to fulfill work plans, objectives, and outputs stated in project proposals. However, specific objectives oriented to generate lessons from experience, reflection on, and analysis of lessons are not a priority when preparing project proposals. This paper illustrates the need to use ‘‘conceptual research’’ in addition to ‘‘decision-oriented research’’ (Leeuwis 2004) in order to extract lessons from PR-related experiences, which can help the organizations involved.

Inter-organizational learning and PR in the CIP and CARE case The development of concepts and methods related to PR at CIP can be traced back to the 1980s following research on the ‘‘farmer-back-to-farmer’’ approach (see Rhoades and Booth 1982). Thiele et al. (2001) analyze the evolution of participatory research at CIP and identify several different stages. There was a period when participatory methods emerged from 1975 to 1980; another stage when participatory approaches began to be implemented with national agricultural research institutes in Peru and Bolivia between 1981 and 1989; a third period of ‘‘fragmentation’’ of PR efforts between 1990 and 1996 when a number of parallel experiences began to be conducted; and the last period, which started in 1997, when the farmer field schools (FFS) approach became central to CIP’s strategy for PR. The experience of CIP and CARE contributed to the last two stages of the evolution of PR at CIP, and was one of several experiences related to the implementation of PR in a collaborative way carried out by CIP staff in Latin America, Africa, and Asia (van de Fliert and Braun 1999; Stathers et al. 2005; Prain et al. 2006). In the case of CIP and CARE, interest in learning from inter-institutional experiences has been gaining importance in recent years. The reason for this is that the teams of both institutions have passed from a technocrat phase in the early 1990s when activities followed the technology transfer approach, to a more reflective mode over time. Researchers were initially thinking of narrow technical problems, for example, ‘‘how to control the Andean potato weevil’’ for which there were also clear technical answers and clear perceived roles of the actors involved. Over the years, through interaction, researchers and development practitioners came to look at issues in a wider context, including productivity but also livelihoods, sustainability,

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and other poverty-related factors. In recent years, CIP and CARE teams have started to use a more reflective mode (in accordance with ideas from the innovation systems concepts of Lundvall et al. 2002), where more complex questions have started to be asked; for example, ‘‘how can potato production be made more competitive and sustainable for resource-poor farmers?’’ The lack of clear answers has influenced the organizational interest in exploring and reflecting on possible answers to these complex questions, and PR has helped to generate experiences to feed the reflection process. This internal process has been coincident with an evolving external context among the donor community. This paper makes the case that for interactive or mutual learning to occur among organizations, learning environments in which actors (individuals or group) take part must be fostered, and that PR facilitates a collaborative learning environment when formalized in inter-organizational mechanisms. Individual and group experiences within and among organizations tend to be isolated cases of innovation at the beginning generating tacit knowledge, but slowly the lessons learned start to permeate and influence other individuals and groups within the organizations. This process is called osmosis of information and is described later in this paper. The ex-post analysis of CIP and CARE interaction resulted in the identification of three types of environments that influenced, and were influenced by the interaction— the two individual institutional environments with their own dynamics and the collaborative learning environment. In the latter, three learning periods were identified, and each period corresponds to a distinct effort, characterized by a specific team and a particular grant and donor, but follows an accumulative learning process of the individuals involved (some of them passed through all three periods). The learning periods include (1) the information-transfer period, (2) the action-learning period, and (3) the sociallearning period. The focus of the paper is on the evolution of the collaborative learning environment and the lessons learned. This evolution is described in the following sections of the paper.

The information-transfer period The first phase of the CIP–CARE collaborative environment, which we called the information transfer period, began in 1993. At that time, the Peruvian agricultural research and extension system had been dramatically reduced. CIP needed new partners and CARE had over-

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lapping objectives regarding the promotion of sustainable methods for pest control on the potato crop, which facilitated the initiation of the interaction (Fano et al. 1996), and materialized in a formal, collaborative, 3-year project called the MIP-Andes project, financed by USAID. The project was aimed at disseminating IPM for the potato crop in communities in four Departments in the Peruvian highlands, specifically Cajamarca, La Libertad, Ancash, and Puno (Chiri et al. 1995, 1996; Ortiz 1997). Of these four initial sites in the first collaborative period, only in Cajamarca have learning activities continued in the following two periods, because in that region both CIP and CARE had overlapping research and development projects, such as the CARE’s ‘‘Altura’’ and ‘‘Andino’’ projects and CIP’s project on integrated management of late blight, which facilitated the implementation of collaborative interorganizational projects that characterized the next two learning periods. This phase began with a shared perception of clearly defined roles. On the one hand, CIP was perceived as the ‘‘source’’ of the technical information on IPM technologies for controlling the Andean potato weevil and potato tuber moth developed in pilot units (Cisneros et al. 1995; Thiele et al. 2001). On the other hand, the role of CARE was defined as the ‘‘vehicle’’ that would make the information available to farmers because it had extension infrastructure and sufficient logistical support. Farmers were defined as the ‘‘recipients’’ of the information. That was a stage at which the technology transfer and pipeline approach was still dominant in both groups. The MIP-Andes project set specific responsibilities for both institutions. CIP was in charge of providing training about IPM to 39 CARE extension workers, which was done in several national courses, also through supervision visits to each of CARE’s regional offices, and by participating in the development of IPM-related training materials. CARE was in charge of organizing, providing logistic support and implementing extension activities, which included initially group and individual farmer training using posters, pamphlets, and videos, but also specific visits to farms and potato plots and stores. Ortiz (1997) indicates that CIP emphasized the provision of training on the technical component of the technology, but that no emphasis was given to improving the skills of CARE field staff related to teaching IPM to farmers. However, as soon as extension workers started to transfer information about IPM, using methods similar to those they had used in the past to transfer information about pesticide use, they realized that the information about IPM was more complex because it included aspects related to the biology and behavior of the insects and


because a number of IPM control practices were complicated compared to straightforward information about pesticide use.2 This complexity made it difficult to transfer the information using conventional methods and fostered creativity among extension staff. At the end of the first phase of collaboration, the results of interactive learning started to pay off for both institutions. CIP–CARE interaction during this initial phase was regarded as positive and beneficial for farmers and for both institutions. In economic terms, Ortiz et al. (1996) indicate that this project yielded a rate of return on investment of about 30%, which compares favorably with other investments in agricultural research; and that, in practical terms, it generated a benefit for potato growers from US$100 to US$175 per hectare per year (Ortiz et al. 1996; Chiri et al. 1995, 1996). Ortiz (1997) also concludes that an important result of the collaborative project was the enhancement of farmers’ knowledge and decision-making process for potato pest control, and also the enhancement of technical and methodological knowledge on the part of CARE extension workers. These new capabilities within CARE were reflected in the replication of the MIP-Andes experience within another larger project called ‘‘Altura’’ that CARE had with the Peruvian Government, through which CARE provided support to staff from a large government soil-conservation project, and as a result IPM information that was disseminated to 11 additional sites in the Peruvian Andes (CARE-Peru 2000). The collaborative learning environment generated by the project helped staff of both institutions to learn that although exchanging technical information was important, it was not sufficient for the implementation of IPM (Ortiz et al. 1996; Ortiz 2001). During the second and third year of the MIP-Andes project, efforts were made by both institutions to improve communication with farmers. CARE extension workers and CIP researchers were very active in developing new ways of explaining complex concepts to farmers. For example, by taking them to specific sites in the farms where insects concentrated (infestation sources), such as the soil of potato stores or places where farmers piled potatoes before sorting, and where farmers could observe insect metamorphosis. Also, by finding analogies to explain complex concepts, for example, using frog metamorphosis (easier to see by farmers) to introduce concepts of insect life cycles.

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Alternatives to control both pests included elimination of volunteer plants, nocturnal hand-picking of adult weevils, turn-over of soils in infestation sources, use of sheets to pile potatoes during harvesting and sorting, harvest on time, use of chickens as larva predators, use of diffused light stores, trenches around stores or fields, vegetative, chemical or physical barriers, biological control agents, and pheromones (Cisneros et al. 1995).

For CIP researchers, this was the first opportunity to test IPM technologies developed in pilot units (Cisneros et al. 1995) in a wider context. The complexity of conditions at the locations where the MIP-Andes project was implemented influenced researchers and extension workers to identify the need to conduct participatory research to finetune IPM-related technologies. Within CIP, other groups of researchers were generating their own learning processes and similar conclusions were being drawn in other locations in Latin America and Asia (van de Fliert and Braun 1999; Thiele et al. 2001; Prain et al. 2006). Therefore, at the end of the information-transfer period, the CIP–CARE experience and other learning processes within CIP started to produce a critical mass of staff with renewed interested in PR. In addition, the perception of CIP staff that CARE was only an extension organization began to change, and CARE staff began to be interested in participatory, adaptive research in addition to their extension responsibilities. An important lesson for both organizations was the realization that IPM was a knowledge-intensive technology as opposed to input based or ‘‘easy-to-use’’ technology (Menter et al. 2004), which required the development of specific participatory research and training methods (Ortiz et al. 1997; Ortiz 2001), which was the driving force for the continuation of the interaction between CIP and CARE and moved the experience to the following period. However, one of the weaknesses of the first phase was that the lessons learned in methodological terms were not documented and the richness of the experience of researchers and, particularly, extension workers remained as tacit knowledge within individuals, who unfortunately in the case of CARE started to move to other institutions because of internal changes in the institution. In the case of CIP, documentation was also limited; it focused on documenting the technical aspects and the economic impact of technologies, but less attention was given to documenting the methods for implementing IPM. In summary, the main lessons learned by both institutions were: (1) collaborative work was profitable in terms of results at the farmer level, but also for the organizations themselves; (2) because IPM is a knowledge-intensive technology, it required innovative research and training methods, such as participatory research and training, to facilitate farmers’ learning and adoption under a wider range of agro-ecosystems; (3) documentation of lessons from interactive learning should be promoted to capture the richness of field workers’ and researchers’ experiences (tacit knowledge) in interacting with farmers. As a result, the importance of PR and training for knowledge-intensive technologies was stressed, particularly in the CIP IPM team working in the Andes, and CARE and CIP decided to continue with the interaction and signed a permanent agreement for collaboration in 1996. At that time, however,

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participants were not yet aware that a specific interactive learning process was taking place as a result of collaborative work and it was difficult for individuals and organizations to visualize tacit knowledge, which remained mostly within individuals. This asset started to become clearer as the inter-institutional relationship was maintained in the following learning periods.

The action-learning period The second phase of collaboration implemented between 1997 and 2002, which we call the action-learning period, built on the lessons learned about the need to develop and use specific participatory research and training methods to work with knowledge-intensive technologies. As a result, both institutions agreed to embark on a new experience related to adapting participatory research and training methods for the integrated management of potato late blight—a topic even more complex than IPM for insects because of the difficulty of dealing with microorganisms, hard to see with naked eye compared to insects. This experience was specifically related to the adaptation of the farmer field school (FFS) approach (Gallagher 1999) to solve problems caused by potato late blight, an endemic disease in the Andean region of Peru that had become significantly more challenging to farmers because of global pathogen migration (Fry et al. 1993). Therefore, the FFS approach was identified at that time as the ‘‘best bet’’ in methodological terms (Douthwaite 2002). The process was facilitated by a ‘‘champion’’ who had recently joined CIP and brought her experience related to FFS adapted to crop disease management from Asia. An additional difference was that CIP gave priority to controlling potato late blight, for which resistant varieties of potatoes were available. However, even new resistant varieties still needed some fungicide applications according to local conditions, so that resistance could yield the expected benefits (Nelson et al. 2001; Ortiz et al. 2004). CIP and CARE had a prototype methodology and technology, which needed to be adapted to site-specific conditions through PR. Therefore, in this period, neither CIP nor CARE had a ‘‘technology package’’ ready to transfer, nor felt that this was a desirable objective. On the contrary, there was an agreement to develop a locally responsive approach and that both institutions should learn in the process. A clear difference compared to the previous information-transfer period was that roles of both institutions became more flexible with no clearly identified sources or users of innovation, rather learners through interaction. During the second period of collaboration, the perception of CIP’s role in the interaction changed from source to a broker of information, meaning that not only CIP-related

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technologies or information were proposed, but information and technologies coming from any source, recognizing the fact that there are multiple sources of information and innovation in the system. As indicated above, during the action-learning period, both institutions initiated the adaptation of the FFS approach, originally mainly oriented for extension purposes, introducing a strong component of PR, which was reflected in a change of the name of the approach to farmer participatory research (FPR) through farmer field schools or FPR–FFS (Ortiz et al. 2004). In retrospect, this could be regarded as a practical application of the convergence of the farmer-participatory extension approaches represented by the conventional FFS with the participatory technology development approach that had worked out well in the local farmer committee for agricultural research or CIAL methodology (Braun et al. 2000). This convergence was the natural result of collaboration between research and extension organizations confronting a new problem that required both extensive training of farmers (i.e., for disease management decisions) and extensive technological testing (e.g., evaluation of large sets of varieties, breeding lines and fungicide plans in an extremely variable environment). CIP and CARE began to adapt the FFS approach by turning a training tool into a research tool to the potato crop in Cajamarca in the northern Peruvian highlands. This process was supported by a grant provided by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) between 1999 and 2002. CIP and CARE staff, who had learned that documentation of experiences was missing during the first learning period, began to pay special attention to documenting their experience, particularly methodological lessons through the elaboration of field manuals. This process helped staff involved to transform their tacit into explicit knowledge. As a result, although through a time consuming and demanding process (in the course of six workshops of three to 4 days each with an average of four staff members from each institution, plus extensive writing done by specific team members), guidelines were produced describing the main methodological lessons related to the implementation of FPR–FFS for potato-related problems in the northern highlands of Peru (Bazań et al. 2002). During this period, CIP also paid attention to evaluating impact of collaborative projects more carefully, not only from the economic point of view, but also taking into considerations effects on human and social capital, which was not a priority in the first learning period. Results indicated that farmers could benefit from their involvement in PR and training by accessing new technologies such as new potato varieties, generating additional income of about US$350/ha, and that the new knowledge acquired by farmers transformed into management decisions could


generate an additional income of US$236/ha (Zuger 2004). Godtland et al. (2004) also studied the FPR–FFS case of CIP and CARE and agree that knowledge is associated with productivity and could result in an increase of 32% in the input–output ratio of this crop. In this period, efforts were also made to assess changes in human and social capital, and results showed additional positive effects of FPR–FFS (Buck 2001; Zuger 2003). In addition, the action-learning period showed that CIP and CARE could conduct PR efficiently by combining their comparative advantages, generating real-world information; for example, assessing how potato genotypes performed in different environments with different types of management, and how PR could be adapted to local circumstances (Nelson et al. 2001; Ortiz et al. 2004). CARE supported the process by providing logistic support and allowing its extension personnel to invest time in participatory research, data collection and analysis (this did not happened during the first period). CIP provided technical and methodological backstopping for the process. In addition, CIP and CARE realized that more holistic approaches were needed for working with farmers because they had other potato-related problems such as insect pests, low quality of seed, and low soil fertility and, although keeping a focus on late blight control, other crop management technologies began to be tested. At the end of the second phase of collaboration, some conscious decisions began to be made according to the lessons learned by both organizations. For example, some ideas were discussed and specific actions were taken to include PR and training activities (generated by the FFS experience) in other CARE projects with an orientation toward promoting market linkages. This was the specific case of the use of the FFS approach in a project to promote the production and marketing of a native fruit tree, called ‘‘chirimoya’’ or Annona cherimole (Miller) in the Cajamarca area, where the content of the FFS was oriented to control fruit fly and to help farmers to establish linkages with the market (CARE-Peru 2006). This was a visible result of the information osmosis, or sharing of tacit and explicit knowledge between the CIP–CARE FFS team and other CARE teams. Transforming tacit into explicit knowledge was facilitated by asking the question ‘‘what other individuals or institutions would need to know about the steps involved in the replication of FFS?’’ And the answers were systematized in the form of a manual, which helped other teams to develop their own experiences. Both organizations started to take into consideration scaling-up and out issues based on their experience and, as Cook and Fujisaka (2004) indicate, instead of assuming that good experiences would be replicated automatically, organizations need to define strategies to facilitate the process. However, in both the elaboration of

methodological guidelines and the evaluation of the impact (both useful information for scaling-up), there was a failure to document the processes that made the adaptation of the FFS approach possible within both organizations. In other words, the questions ‘‘how did it happen and what did it mean for CIP or CARE internal strategies?’’ were not specifically addressed. At the end of the action-learning period, internal and external institutional contexts began to change substantially. For example, CARE changed its approach from providing specific technical assistance to fostering the improvement of local actors’ abilities, using livelihood and market-oriented approaches, and was slowly terminating direct extension intervention. CIP was also in the process of reflecting on how to enhance its role in alleviating poverty for its new vision (CIP 2004). In summary, the main lessons of the action-learning period included: (1) the confirmation that PR and training were needed to address potato-related problems such as late blight, with positive effects for the participating farmers, other individual and organizational stakeholders; (2) CIP and CARE could conduct methodological and technological research efficiently because of more flexible roles of both organizations (Nelson et al. 2001; Ortiz et al. 2004; Godland et al. 2004); (3) tacit knowledge could be transformed into explicit knowledge through documenting and reflecting on lessons, although required additional efforts for both organizations such as devoting time, resources, and opportunities for this to happen (e.g., specific inter-organizational workshops); and (4) for scalingup and out of lessons to happen, the involvement of other organizations was needed. The latter lessons influenced CIP and CARE to move to the next period of collaboration.

The social-learning period During the previous action-learning period, the need to consider the complexity of the organizational and institutional contexts in which both institutions were working was gaining importance for scaling-up and out purposes within CIP and CARE. For the latter, the change was more tangible because of changes towards approaches related to human rights and the promotion of self-empowerment to increase the capacities of local actors (CARE-Peru 2005). In addition, the challenge of scaling-up and moving beyond the pilot areas was regarded as an important step forward for the relationship between the organizations. At the same time, the CIP team from the newly created Integrated Crop Management Division started to consider the diversity of institutional actors and to analyze strategies about how to interact more efficiently with different organizations, for example, by providing technical and methodological

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support to relevant stakeholders with the objective of enhancing the potato innovation system. The third phase of collaboration between CIP and CARE started in 2004, and we call it the social-learning period. This phase has been supported by another grant provided by IFAD. The main objectives of this phase are related to promoting more conscious and planned interactive and mutual learning processes among a larger set of institutions for the analysis of participatory methods and technologies. The idea in this phase is that institutions themselves should start generating their own experiences through, for example, monitoring and assessing PR-related costs and benefits. The process of evaluating and reflecting on experience (as opposed to just implementing it) has facilitated the generation of knowledge. Sharing experiences, networking, documentation, and other mechanisms have contributed to establishing inter-organizational learning beyond CIP and CARE. Going a step beyond, CIP–CARE and other partners aim to transform lessons into guidelines to help other organizations make appropriate decisions about the types of methods and technologies they should prioritize. In this period, several organizations are involved in inter-institutional learning activities, which include CARE and CIP, three local municipalities that have begun to be involved in promoting agricultural development in Northern Peru, one NGO, one government project, and grass root organizations, such as the association of farmer field schools of San Miguel (a result of the second phase of collaboration). Each organization documents the costs of PR, advantages and disadvantages from the point of view of different stakeholders (farmers, practitioners and management staff), and uses the information to reflect on real costs and benefits. For example, assessments indicate that the cost of running a PR group of about 20 persons can be between US$650 and US$1,000 per year (including personnel, transport, inputs, and training materials), depending on the technology under evaluation and location (CIP 2006). With this information, any institution could start estimating the costs of scaling out PR and compare them with the potential benefits that a given technology could generate. This social learning period has helped CIP reflect on mechanisms to contribute to the Millennium Development Goals, a commitment established in its new vision (CIP 2004). CIP is analyzing its role in meeting these goals, and it is clear that it cannot act alone if it wants to contribute to these large goals in a meaningful way. The experience of development-oriented institutions is essential for CIP because they can identify more easily the hidden factors that influence methodological and technological innovation, such as the real costs involved in different participatory methods when applied to large-scale

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development interventions, something that is not easily perceived by research institutions. The CARE contribution at this stage is key to documentation and to the generation of guidelines for decision-making. However, it has been observed that the staffs of the organizations have difficulties allocating time for monitoring and learning. Therefore, allocating time for reflecting and documenting processes and not only focusing on outputs would become an even more critical factor to be taken into consideration by managers, particularly because of the accelerated current pace of work. In other words, tacit knowledge has been generated rapidly but it has not been transformed into explicit knowledge at the same speed, which may affect scaling-up and out lessons, with the risk that other organizations do not build on lessons learned. In the social learning period, the lessons learned by CARE and CIP during previous phases have started to be shared with other organizational actors. As a result, mutual, interactive learning has increased in complexity because other institutions with different backgrounds and contexts are involved in the process. This means that the collaborative environment, which initially only influenced and was influenced by the organizational environments of CIP and CARE, becomes more complex because it is influenced by the dynamics of many institutions and because stakeholders play multiple roles at the same time.3 This, undoubtedly, will increase the challenge of extracting, documenting, and sharing lessons. The term ‘‘osmosis of information’’ describes the process of information flow in a way that is similar to that in biology. Instead of a flow of nutrients, ions or other substances from areas with higher concentration to areas with lower concentration, it is information which flows from groups with more experience on specific subjects, methods or approaches (meaning groups with more tacit knowledge), to other groups within the same institution, and more importantly, to groups in other institutions. An example of this process within CARE is that the experience with FFS, that was a small part of a number of development interventions related to, for instance, family health, water and sanitation, livestock production and value chains, implemented in the Cajamarca office, started to be shared with other projects within the same area (CARE-Peru 2006). Within CIP and research partners, a similar process 3

Another way of looking at changes in roles can be described using the terms provided by Lundvall et al. (2002). During the informationtransfer period, the perceived roles of ‘‘pioneers’’ (researchers) and ‘‘imitators’’ (extension workers and farmers) prevailed. During the action-learning period, roles shifted to ‘‘adaptationists’’ (researchers and extension workers) and in some cases to ‘‘complementors.’’ During the social-learning period, the roles of ‘‘adaptationists’’ and ‘‘complementors’’ became clearer, but ‘‘mixed strategies’’ (changing and combining roles) for innovation according to circumstances have also being happening.


occurred in the Andean team. Initially there was one group using FFS related to late blight, and other teams later started to use the approach to address other problems such as bacterial wilt (Priou et al. 2004), insect pests, and other crop management topics (Pumisacho and Sherwood 2005); by 2006, CIP had FFS-related interventions in three other Peruvian Departments (Puno, Andahuaylas, and Junin) in collaboration with the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (INIEA) and NGOs. The application of the CIP–CARE experience in other contexts has been facilitated by having specific manuals and a better understanding of processes about how to implement PR; for example, what specific training facilitators would require, what investment would be needed for participatory trials, what types of evaluations need to be conducted by facilitators and farmers, and when and how to conduct workshops to analyze lessons. The osmosis of information is affected by the same factors that influence the dissemination of tacit knowledge identified by Haldin-Herrgard (2000) and Smith (2001), which usually affect face-to-face interactions in communities of practice. For example, the closer the people are to the center of the origin of ideas (higher concentration of tacit knowledge), the more accurate the information that they receive is; but when individuals or institutions are relatively far from the center of origin, incomplete information tends to be disseminated, or they simply cannot access innovative information. In the case of CARE, replication within the Cajamarca Region has been easier, compared to in other CARE offices in Peru. Another important process associated with the osmosis of information has been the mobility of CARE staff. During the action-learning period, a group of six staff members participated actively in the adaptation of the FFS approach in the Cajamarca region. In 2000, these individuals moved to other institutions, taking with them tacit knowledge gained as a result of interactive learning. Therefore, the osmosis of information reached other institutions and resulted in the use of the FFS approach in different settings, such as in a number of institutions that participated in the IPM-FFS project coordinated by FAO in Peru (Groeneweg et al. 2004). The osmosis of information has been more intense during the action and social learning periods because there was more information ready to share as a result of the accumulative learning process that intensified in these periods, and because tacit knowledge developed by individuals started to become explicit knowledge, for example through manuals, which facilitated the information flow. This osmosis phenomenon has implications for promoting institutional learning. For example, a more efficient mechanism for sharing lessons would be to assign staff from other areas of the organization closer to the center of

the origin of information where the experience takes place, meaning in practice that staff would share time on different projects or programs, forming part of different teams. This is called on-the-job training in business settings (Nonaka 1994). In other words, instead of giving a presentation to colleagues about an experience, or asking them to read a report, the idea would be to invite people to work and learn first hand. CIP–CARE experience has shown that individuals (staff within organizations) do not adopt an approach unless they have had a learning experience in practical terms. This phenomenon has also been pointed out by Gurung and Menter (2004) analyzing the case of agricultural research organizations. Just as farmers want to test a new technology or innovation before adopting it, extension workers, researchers, and organizations need to experience methods before making decisions to adopt them. The social learning period main objective has been to provide institutions with the opportunity to try new methods on a limited scale and to undergo a learning experience before proceeding to apply knowledge on a larger scale. During this period, approaches such as the agricultural knowledge and information system (Engel 1997) and innovation systems (Biggs 1990; Biggs and Matsaert 2004; Lundvall et al. 2002) have begun to be taken into consideration. CIP and CARE teams involved in the learning experience have realized that innovation requires greater involvement of local actors, enhanced interaction for accessing and using meaningful scientific information, and more flexibility on the part of research institutions. However, challenges can also arise because measuring institutional learning and the benefits derived from it is a complex process with difficulties in determining attributions. Although the social-learning period is in its last stage, the lessons learned so far indicate that: (1) finding ways of intervening in highly complex innovation systems is the challenge that both CIP and CARE have to face in the near future in order to scale-up and out the lessons learned; (2) information and guidelines about how to implement PR, how much would that costs, what factors influence it, and what are the potential benefits would be key for other stakeholders to make decisions; and (3) experiential learning would be needed for organizations who need to test an innovation under their own context.

A framework for analyzing inter-organizational learning The case of CIP and CARE shows a process for interorganizational learning which has occurred throughout the years. Figure 1 shows three main elements that can be identified from the process of organizational learning described above, considering elements of organizational

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O. Ortiz et al. Fig. 1 Elements of the interorganizational learning process of CIP and CARE over time in Peru

Time line 1993

1996

2002

2005

C I P e n v i r o n me nt Limited interest in PR in Peru Pipeline mode of innovation dominant

Growing interest in developing and using PR methods for knowledgeintensive technologies

Changes in institutional policies, main interest in contributing to achieving Millennium Development Goals Renewed interest in partnerships for scaling-up technological results

Collaborative learning environment Information transfer period Perception of defined roles, institutional rigidity. Main lessons: IPM requires appropriate research and training methods Human resource development promoted Interaction should be maintained Weak documentation and systematization of lessons Need for PR methods identified

Action-learning period Increased flexibility of roles and mechanisms for interaction Main lessons: Adaptation and documentation of methods as a result of collaboration Learning enhanced through documentation, but still limited reflection Need for scaling-up and out clear PR supported learning and role flexibility

Social learning period Changes in institutional contexts influenced interaction Main lessons: The need to share PR lessons with more institutions addressed Learning experiences promoted as a way to enhance decision-making Experiential learning needed for organizations Inter-organizational learning more complex due to more stakeholders

CARE-Peru environment Main goals related to providing assistance (technical and material) to the poor Conventional extension work

environments, collaborative learning environment (which generates lessons), and time. The first is the institutional environments of each of the organizations, which evolved independently and were influenced by the internal and external environment of each organization, including changes in institutional strategies and the influence of donors in the process. These environments define whether an organization engages in interactive learning through collaborative projects and determine the quality of the collaborative learning environment. The second is the collaborative learning environment that resulted from the interaction and had three phases in its evolution: (1) the information transfer period with fixed roles and where PR did not have a contribution, but the need to use participatory methods and document lessons was identified; (2) the action-learning period in which PR facilitated flexibility of roles, trust, and increased documentation of results; inter-organizational learning was facilitated by the transformation of tacit into explicit knowledge, but still with not enough reflection on the meaning of lessons; and (3) the social learning period, where the need to share lessons with other institutions for scaling-up and out lessons was clearer. An important aspect in the inter-organizational learning is how to promote efficient collaborative learning environments, which requires a mechanism that creates common understanding actual involvement of actors. In the CIP and CARE case, PR has been the linking mechanism

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Growing interest in developing and using PR methods for promoting agricultural development Institutional goals shifted toward promoting market-oriented activities Reducing emphasis on direct extension interventions

Changes in institutional policies oriented towards human rights and enhancing capabilities of local actors to promote rural development

through which inter-institutional learning has taken place, supporting the extraction of lessons and guidelines and helping institutions to reflect about its utility. The last element in the framework is time, which can be analyzed in two senses—the total duration of the interaction (of about 12 years) and the duration of each period of the collaborative learning environment (of about 3– 4 years). The case in study provides evidence of the benefits of having medium and long-term inter-organizational interactions, which should be taken into consideration for the design of projects and as a criterion for donors to select proposals for funding. However, the evolution of learning could not have been predicted in the first learning period because the team members were not aware that a process of learning was happening (this was more evident during the second and third periods). This showed us that social learning evolves and changes over time along with actors, and that it is not possible to foresee what lessons are going to be generated and what changes in project directions are going to happen as a result of such lessons. This is a feature that makes it difficult to use conventional project management tools, such as log frames, to plan learning-oriented projects, because it would not be possible to identify in advance which would be the learning output, only that a learning process will occur. In other words, it would be more important to focus on the process of learning and innovation than on results. Mechanisms that allow more flexibility for project design and management would be needed.


Concluding remarks The learning cycle of CIP–CARE collaborative work over a decade has generated lessons that have led to changes in the way the teams of both institutions operated and interacted, which were reflected in changes along the different periods of collaboration, from information-transfer to actionlearning, and finally social-learning. The realization of the importance of PR as a mechanism for bringing together a research and a development-oriented organization grew over the learning periods. PR was the main contact point— something that both teams could do together with farmers without prescriptions, thus allowing creativity and flexibility—between the teams of the two organizations. As a result, the importance of documenting lessons and transforming them into specific guidelines also grew, which can tell others what, how, how much, and when to use PR. The lessons described in the paper could be used by research and development-oriented institutions interested in working together to develop technological and methodological innovations. PR can provide the space needed for it but would not be the only mechanism for learning. The idea is to have any approach that could bring together two or more teams in a sufficiently formal way, but with enough flexibility to allow innovation and learning. The case presented in the paper shows that a long-term collaborative partnership supports organizational learning, and that organizations learn to learn better over time. Short periods of time for inter-organizational learning allow the generation of tacit knowledge within individuals with the risk of losing it for the organization because of staff mobility. When the interaction is maintained for longer periods, the transformation of tacit into explicit knowledge, which could remain within the institutions, is facilitated and could be shared beyond the organizations that developed the initial experience. Individuals, groups or organizations innovate when they are exposed to and participate actively in a learning process involving doing, testing, evaluating, and making sense of a particular innovation (especially new methods). It is improbable that individuals or groups will innovate and change without experimenting in the real world. This has implications for the institutionalization of participatory approaches—or any other new methodological approach— which should be implemented not just by providing training or information, but also by generating learning experiences for people and organizations. This means in practice that theoretical training should be complemented by action so that staff from different teams or organizations has the chance to implement and assess PR as a learning experience, so that the decision to adopt or institutionalize PR methods and technologies comes from practice and not from theory. The implications would be that managers

would need to differentiate and budget PR activities that aim at fulfilling specific project outputs, from PR activities that aim at generating learning for practitioners and do not necessarily associate to specific projects. A more flexible budget would be required for the latter case. The interaction of CARE and CIP for over a decade is an example of a learning experience facilitated by participatory research as it evolves over time. Experience has shown that both research and development oriented organizations should look for opportunities to interact and learn from each other, and particularly to learn from collaborative action, adapting on-the-job training approaches designed for individuals to the level of on-the-action training for organizations. But specific mechanisms, such as allocating staff time, resources and reward mechanisms, should be put in place so that collaborative experiences are documented and learning processes enhanced. Hence, institutional learning should be planned and promoted, not just left to chance. Periodically, institutions should plan and allocate resources to stop and ask themselves what they have learned so far, and use the answers to adjust future strategies. These processes are relatively common in business organizations and should be more used in agricultural research and development institutions. Innovation systems would work better when interactive and inter-organizational learning is purposefully promoted through collaborative projects, inter-organizational teamwork, documentation of experiences, and shared lessons. This paper has provided an example of how this process occurs, analyzing a long-term experience. Some of the lessons learned could be extrapolated. However, learning is the result of specific experiences in which organizations and individual have to be part of. Acknowledgements The authors are grateful for the support of management and field staff of both CIP and CARE and for the participation of farmers. The views expressed here are, of course, our own.

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Thrupp, L.A. 1996. Overview. In New partnerships for sustainable agriculture, ed. L.A. Thrupp, 1–38. Washington: World Resources Institute. Van de Fliert, E., and A.R. Braun. 1999. Farmer field schools for integrated crop management of sweet potato. Field guides and technical manual. Lima: CIP, Research Institute for Legume and Tuber crops, and UPWARD. Watts, J., R. Mackay, D. Horton, A. Hall, B. Douthwaite, R. Chambers, and A. Acosta. 2003. Institutional learning and change: an introduction, 1–89. ISNAR Discussion Paper No. 0310. The Hague, Netherlands: International Service for National Agricultural Research. Zuger, R. 2003. Do participatory interventions empower people? Paper presented at the 19th Annual Q Conference, Kent State University, Canton. Zuger, R. 2004. Impact assessment of farmer field schools in Cajamarca: an economic evaluation. Social Sciences Working Paper No 2004-1. Peru: International Potato Center. Author Biographies Oscar Ortiz is an agronomist with specialization in agricultural extension and rural development, and is currently the leader of the Integrated Crop Management Division at the International Potato Center. Guillermo Frias is a former Director of the CARE Regional Office of Cajamarca, Peru. Raul Ho is a former coordinator of the Sustainable Agriculture Program of CARE-Peru and is currently program officer of the Sustainable Development Area, South America Regional Office of SAMRO-Oxfam Ame´rica. Hector Cisneros is a former head of the Sustainable Agriculture Program of CARE-Peru and former Coordinator of the Consortium for Sustainable Development of the Andes (CONDESAN), based in Lima, Peru. Rebecca Nelson was a project leader for Integrated Management of Late Blight at the International Potato Center. She is currently Director of the McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crop Research Program at Cornell University. Renee Castillo is a former coordinator of Rural Development Projects in the CARE Regional Office in Cajamarca. Ricardo Orrego is coordinator of the Farmer Field Schools project at the International Potato Center. Willy Pradel is a research assistant in the socioeconomic team of the Integrated Crop Management Division at the International Potato Center. Jesus Alcazar is a research assistant in the Integrated Crop Management Team of the International Potato Center. Mario Bazań is a former staff member of CARE and former Deputy Mayor of the Municipality of Banõs del Inca, Cajamarca, Peru.

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