Changes

 Why did you attend Field Schools rather than your husbands? 

“Our husbands work in construction and as day labourers outside of the village.  This brings in cash to our households and is important.  Because they are often away from home we take on the responsibility for farming.  Our husbands usually are present for land preparation and harvesting, but we make the day to day decisions regarding the management of our fields.”

Did you teach them about IPM?  How did you teach them about IPM?

“Our husbands needed to know about IPM.   This was all new information and we learned new ways of doing things.  If we were to change our ways, our husbands had to know what we were doing and why.”

“I would take my husband out to the field and show him different insects and talk to him about their functions.”

“I tried out different fertiliser practices and showed my husband what I was doing and then we weighed the results from each of our different trials.”

“Yes, I had to make sure that my husband would not be afraid because I wasn’t applying pesticides.  This meant I had to take him into the field and show him how the ecosystem worked.”

“Because I was buying more fertiliser my husband wanted to know what I was doing.  So I talked to him about fertiliser and balanced fertilisation.  Then after harvest, the first season after I attended the Field School, my husband could see the results of better fertilisation.  Our yield was fifty percent higher than before.”

In general how have your yields been since attending Field Schools?  Why do you think that this is true?

“I think that all of our yields have gone up.”  (All the women nod in agreement.)

“Perhaps each of us has experienced different levels of increase in our harvests, but we have all seen better harvests since attending Field Schools.”

What are you doing differently?  Why have your yields gone up?

“I am doing things that I learned about in the Field School.  I use a different variety of rice..  I am planting fewer plants per hill and the hills are farther apart.  This allows each plant to produce more productive tillers with more rice grains.  I am using less urea but more phosphorus and potassium.”

“I think that we are also paying more attention to using water effectively.”

Tell me about other ways that having attended a Field School has changed how you live?

“I think that we women work better together as a group. Our discussions are more open and we make sure that everybody gets to say what she is seeing in the field and give her opinion about her observations.”

“I think my husband and I a little more careful in our decision making, more analytical.  For example, my husband thinks that we need a motorcycle.  I agree that it would be useful.  But rather than buying the motorcycle right away, we have analysed how we would benefit because of a motorcycle and what we would have to give up because of buying a motorcycle.  Also we are examining how to purchase the motorcycle, credit or cash.”

“ I go to sleep easier at night.  Before my husband and I didn’t know much about what was going on in our field. Now we make better, more informed decisions.  We know about different factors in the field such as pests, natural enemies, fertilisation, and we know how to care for our crop.  We can actually take control of many things to ensure better yields.  This makes me sleep easier”