Participatory Monitoring and Impact Assessment of Sustainable Agriculture Initiatives

THIS BOOK COMES from IIED's Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods (SARL) Programme which seeks to promote and support rural development based on sustainable agricultural and land management practices, strong rural organizations and dynamic social enterprises. The book is a practical, methodological introduction to setting up a participatory monitoring process for sustainable agriculture initiatives. It was initially written as a guide for the first stage of an action-research process on monitoring and impact assessment with small-scale producers, rural workers’ unions and non-governmental organizations engaged in sustainable agriculture in Brazil.

After explaining the objectives of the research in Chapters 2, where the growing interest in monitoring is discussed and 3, where the challenges in monitoring the sustainability of agricultural practices are explored, this document introduces several central concepts and identifies key steps in developing a monitoring system. Chapter 4 clarifies key concepts, such as participation, monitoring, evaluation, indicators and impact, and these are discussed in relation to the Brazilian research. Chapter 5 outlines the key steps to be followed in planning, using in this case an indicator-based approach to participatory monitoring. This is followed by a discussion on the complexity of indicator selection and on choosing methods, showing a range of possible methods with examples from the agricultural sector. The paper ends by reflecting on common pitfalls and specific difficulties faced in Brazil in starting up a participatory monitoring system for assessing sustainable agriculture. Annex 1 provides a description and visual examples of 20 participatory methods that can and/or have been used for monitoring change: biophysical measurements, forms, diaries, photographs and videos, maps, transects, social mapping, impact flow diagram, systems diagram, matrix scoring, relative scales, ranking and pocket charts, calendars, daily routines, institutional diagrams, network diagrams, dreams realized, critical event analysis, case studies and participatory theatre.