Challenges for Farmers Field School in Sudan: Towards Participatory Synthesis of Traditional Practices and Modern Knowledge for Sustainable Farming and Livelihood

Farmers in Gadarif State, Sudan, are suffering from Striga, a parasitic weed also known as witchweed, which attacks sorghum, their staple food crop. Given the threat to food security, Farmers Field School (FFS) program, launched by Sudanese researchers with funding from Japan, works with local farmers to develop weed control techniques combining traditional practices with outcomes of modern research. This paper, based on interviews with the researchers, examination of technical documents, and survey and interviews with farmers, presents our self-critical assessments of prospects and challenges of FFS striving to improve the food security and build sustainable livelihood. First, FFS attempts to revive, combine, and scientifically validate traditional practices to control Striga, including crop rotation, deep plowing and soil flooding, which currently few farmers adopt. Assessing these methods with local farmers, FFS is expected to generate a feasible, effective, and hence sustainable weed control regime to improve the food security of the underprivileged farmers. Second, while the livelihood in rural Gadarif is likely to continue centering on agriculture, many farming household members now seek non-agricultural income opportunities, as informed by the livelihoods approach literature. The livelihood diversification may indicate that FFS’s scope should eventually be widen to respond to diverse needs of farmers, such as comprehensive farm household management, financial literacy education and entrepreneurship. FFS’s participatory approach therefore should dedicate its efforts to truly empowering the participants beyond the technical development. Third, despite its promising bid, FFS leaves an essential question unanswered as to why Striga has recently come to damage sorghum devastatingly. Answering this question may demand a scrutiny of changes in political-ecological conditions of the region. Whatever the true reason is behind the Striga epidemic, attention to wider social, political, economic and ecological conditions is vital to tackle the problem and build sustainable farming and livelihood in Gadarif.