110 – Further reflections on the FRN Convening

[00:00:07] Lucie:Hi, and welcome to the IDEMS podcast. My name’s Lucie Hazelgrove Planel. I’m a Social Impact Scientist, and I’m here today with David Stern, one of the founding directors of IDEMS. Hi, David.

[00:00:17] David: Hi, Lucie. We’re going again on the FRN convening, I hope, today.

[00:00:22] Lucie: Absolutely. So it was a grouping of the three communities of practice that McKnight has created as part of their Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems. And it was to discuss how to do agroecological research and how to promote it and how to make advances, both with farmers to uptake agroecological ideas, but also with governments and policymakers on all fronts, I think.

[00:00:49] David: And researchers, of course, the whole element of the FRN approach is to integrate science, the practice, the movement, bring them all together.

And what I’m really keen to discuss and focus in on today is you’ve highlighted the fact that this brought people from the three communities of practice: the Andes, West Africa, and of course, it was actually hosted in Eastern Southern Africa.

[00:01:17] Lucie: In Kenya.

[00:01:18] David: Well, specifically in Kenya, yeah. But that community of practice is Eastern Southern Africa, including Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda. My hope today is to particularly hone in on, well, we work in the West African region and I was delighted, it’s the first time I’ve been in Kenya, where I lived for six years, with members of the West African community of practice, and in particular members of the farmer federations there.

And that’s an experience which I’d been looking forward to and wanting to happen for quite a long time, for the cross learning. It was really interesting to see. It was really interesting also for them to be, well, for me to be sort of able to be in an environment I was so comfortable in, because I’d lived just near where we were having the convening for six years, and for them to be. sort of the outsiders in a space that I knew well, when normally I’m the outsider in their spaces.

And that was a very interesting experience for me. I really appreciated the way that they engaged and took things from the environment, which was so different.

[00:02:34] Lucie: I arrived, I think, a day or two after you, and you had already, I think, organised an impromptu visit of the town for early arrivers.

[00:02:43] David: Yeah, just sort of taking people around what used to be my big city, because I lived sort of, 45 minutes out of the city in the local university. So actually then to be the host to these members of the farmer federations or farmers organisations from Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali and to be able to interact with them out of their environment, but in an environment where I had understanding and could relate and could help to bring connections.

And there were a few different connections. Of course, one of our big connections in the Eastern Southern African region is the Agroecology Hub at Manor House.

[00:03:30] Lucie: In Kitale. Well, just before you get onto that, I think there’s also something, like, as well as the exciting work side of things, I’m also hearing just a personal thing that whenever we usually see our colleagues in West Africa, they are the ones who are hosting us in a certain sense, they’re always the ones who are having to help us. So whereas this time I think you were able to host them.

[00:03:53] David: And do simple things like help sort out some logistics for them. You know, that may sound silly, but the fact that I could help them and return the favour when I’ve been treated so well.

[00:04:02] Lucie: Exactly.

[00:04:03] David: This was a real pleasure for me to be able to return a little bit of the favour and actually, you know, help smoothen their experience in a context where they’re not at home.

[00:04:15] Lucie: Because they always do so much, you know, to smoothen our experience when we’re in West Africa.

[00:04:19] David: Exactly.

[00:04:21] Lucie: I just felt like it’s a very small thing, but it is very important, I think.

[00:04:25] David: And it’s something which is part of the culture which in West Africa is so, so great, that hospitality. And it’s the same in other parts of Africa and the world. But to be able to, you know, just do something simple, a couple of them had problems with the flights, and to be able to go to the airport and just be with them and sort out their issues with the flights so that they’re actually able to carry on because they had a language barrier and so on. And just to be able to, you know, play that role of the host, in some sense, was a real privilege for me.

[00:05:00] Lucie: And just as a sort of way to go back to the work side of the convening, as you were mentioning.

[00:05:05] David: Which is what’s more important!

[00:05:07] Lucie: But yes, someone from, talking about this hosting thing, someone, I think it was from the West Africa delegation, they said that, they are used to having the reputation of being, you know, amazing hosts, but arriving in Kenya and being welcomed by the East and Southern Africa community of practice, they perhaps felt like that they had met their match, or, you know.

[00:05:28] David: I think it was specifically when they went on the farm visit, because I talked to a couple of them about this and the fact that it seems that farmers across the continent have this similar sort of passion to host and to share, you know, in ways where they felt very much they were treated as they would hope for others to be treated in that sort of way. And they really appreciated that.

[00:05:51] Lucie: That’s really interesting.

[00:05:53] David: And it was eye opening for them as well. One of the things which I love is, when they were going back, they now were sort of saying, well, I’ve got these ideas, you know, that vegetable I saw, I want to try it. Does it exist? And this for me is a really interesting one because I’ve been asking for about I don’t know how many years now, you know, would this vegetable work here?

It’s been doing amazing things in East Africa, and maybe it would work here, and I’ve been looking for somebody who’s doing it, and I found people in the region. But there was nobody in the group who was interested in it. And now, going back, they are. They’ve seen what it does here. And now they say, well, I’d like to try that. Does it exist in our region?

And I can say, yes, it does, because I’ve been asking around for five years, knowing nothing about vegetables. But, no, in Kenya and East Africa, this particular vegetable, does it exist in West Africa? And there is a small group who have tested it. I know in Burkina Faso. I don’t know about Niger and Mali. I don’t know if you remember, we met up with somebody through this, who had been working on it.

[00:06:58] Lucie: I’m trying to think, are you talking about cowpea?

[00:06:59] David: No, this is not cowpea. Cowpea is both. This is lablab.

[00:07:04] Lucie: Ah, yeah, yeah.

[00:07:05] David: I’ve forgotten the name in…

[00:07:07] Lucie: It was in Burkina Faso.

[00:07:08] David: It was in Burkina Faso, we met somebody who was working on LabLab. They called it something different, I’ve forgotten what at the moment. I’ve been looking for this for years, and it’s them coming there to this convening, where now they’re going back and they’re asking, can we get some seeds, can we try it for ourselves? So, it’s great, it’s these simple things where you know, I don’t know, that exchange is so wonderful to see.

[00:07:32] Lucie: Well, yeah, and what you were starting, before I interrupted you, you were starting off by saying that there were some sort of exchanges you had hoped would happen.

[00:07:39] David: Yeah.

[00:07:40] Lucie: That both sort of sides of Africa could learn from each other. So one is literally in terms of crop varieties, perhaps.

[00:07:47] David: Species, even.

[00:07:48] Lucie: And the fact of them having been able to see it, I think that made a huge difference, as opposed to just hearing you talking about it.

[00:07:55] David: And I have to be clear, I’ve never talked about it to the farmer groups there, because I don’t know if it’s appropriate in their context. I know nothing about seeds or different crop cultures. I’ve been trying to find the experts in the region who are studying it, to say, is it appropriate? Could it be useful? Could it be interesting? Now, I have, as we said, we’ve identified this one person. And so hopefully that now connection will be made and they might now be trying it through them, because it has been at least a little bit seen. Whether it’s really taken up or not, that’s a whole nother matter.

But it is something where the reason it was so powerful in East and Southern Africa is that it was actually suppressing this weed, striga. And that was one of the reasons why suddenly it got prominence, you know, it’s one of many other vegetables that could be used, but it was its property as a striga suppressant, which made it really popular there. And this is what I think was suddenly of interest to the West African contingent.

[00:08:58] Lucie: Because striga is also…

[00:09:00] David: It’s a different type of striga because it’s related to different crops and so on, but it is also striga. I’m a mathematician, I have a little bit of knowledge of this now from having worked in this area for so long, but I don’t know enough about these different… the details of it. And the details always really matter.

But just the fact that they now have an interest, and they’re going to go and look, and they’re going to go and have a go in their environment, and they’re going to see whether it’s sensible. And they have the networks to be able to get their hand on seed, and if it works to be able to multiply it and distribute it in their context in interesting ways and test it. It’s created, I don’t know what will happen there, but just the fact that that exchange has happened, it makes me very happy.

And I suppose the other one which is really interesting is, the connection I wanted with Manor House and the Agroecology Hub.

[00:09:49] Lucie: Yeah.

[00:09:50] David: Of course, they’ve been doing lablab work with other partners as well, but that wasn’t the main thing for them. What I was really interested in is these farmer training approaches that they’ve got and how I hope that could be of interest in the West African context. And there are elements of this where the exchange has started.

Now, the details of course couldn’t be done in that context, and they would need a more, you know, they need to actually see the trainings, they need to understand the nature of them. But the start of that has happened because what was able to be shared is sort of the power of how having not just demonstration farms, but this sort of training centre, which is a demonstrator as well, of these agroecological practices, and how having trainings in an environment where you have these different components on land, which is part of that centre, that’s part of what was shared.

And you could immediately see some of the partners in West Africa saying, ooh, we could maybe do this. We could maybe create something like this in our context. We actually have some land for our farmer federation where we could now be trying. And so whether that component starts, it leads to something I don’t know, but it’s things they’ve been thinking about, which now that exchange has sort of started in a way which could be powerful.

[00:11:12] Lucie: Exactly. And I think that a lot of them were already sort of moving in that direction. As you say, in West Africa, the federations and organisations have fields, test fields, I guess, or display fields.

[00:11:24] David: Yeah.

[00:11:24] Lucie: But they’re starting to think then about how to host people for longer periods of time and get them involved in a wider range of activities, I guess. That’s what Manor House is able to provide. It has such a large diversity, not only of the different crops, but of the different agroecological practices, for example, having food forests and water capture and different energy sources.

[00:11:48] David: And animals, of course, in different ways, and sort of studies on these. And it’s this sort of, you know, it doesn’t have to be a big thing. This is the other thing that I think they were able to take away, that it’s sort of, from the West African sort of context, actually, land is not always the limiting factor.

And so for them, having a sort of space of land which could be built into this as a federation sort of project, this is achievable in their context. So that was very exciting. But of course I was interested the other way on as well. Actually, these federations, which is so powerful in West Africa and so, you know, and it’s not just federations, but all sorts of organisations that exist there. This is something which I was hoping would inspire the East and Southern African counterparts we have.

[00:12:39] Lucie: Yeah, did you see much of that going that way?

[00:12:43] David: It is difficult to tell. I think that it is this element that there were people who came to me afterwards and said, wow, what FUMA is doing is really impressive. But I don’t know that there was anyone who was able to really tap in to try and sort of see what the next steps would be. But I don’t think that matters because, in some sense, it’s the wrong way on for that. You kind of need the exchange to be the other way round for people to be able to gain that knowledge.

[00:13:17] Lucie: What do you mean?

[00:13:18] David: They need to be the hosts.

[00:13:21] Lucie: Ah, okay, yep.

[00:13:23] David: Yeah, you need to have, let’s say, some of the farmer groups or organisations working with farmers here to see what’s possible, to actually be able to be there and observing it for that longer period of time. And now maybe there’s this spark of interest, which means that might happen.

[00:13:40] Lucie: To me, a lot of it is the amount of time, you know, people were presented with these sort of huge farmer federations and then farmer organisations from West Africa who they work with, I don’t know how many thousands of farmers. And it’s this big, amazing entity already.

But so people who aren’t already, well, don’t know the history of that, it’s too big in a way. It’s too much of a step, as you were saying. They weren’t presented with the story and the journey of how they were created, how they developed into these organisations. So exactly what you’re saying, the time element of digging into that development process and community creation as well as the, again, seeing things for oneself and getting to talk to other members, not just the directors of the organisations.

[00:14:25] David: Well, it was a mixture of directors and different roles in there. But yes, you’re right, it was still only representatives, a few representatives. Whereas you want to have that sort of engagement with other people across the chain to understand the complexities of it, and it’s hard. I was still, I really, I really enjoyed that.

And I guess, I don’t want to deviate too much from this theme because it was such a privilege to be part of that exchange happening in this way. And it’s not the first time for some of them. For some of them, it was their very first time to be outside of their context, sort of observing a different context. But for a number of them, it wasn’t.

But it was such a privilege to be sort of able to be part of building this sort of links between these different contexts. And that’s where I often find our role is a bridge building role. You know, we’re not holders of the knowledge particularly, but we are building bridges between people who are holders of knowledge. And actually supporting that is a role that I really enjoy.

And so to come to one other point, and I’m interested to have your experience on this, you know, even just the language barrier, the fact that the Andes group who came in, which I didn’t know very well, they came in with this language barrier. But…

[00:15:48] Lucie: They didn’t come in with the language barrier [laughs], there was a language barrier!

[00:15:54] David: They brought a language barrier with them because , there were different languages which were spoken, you’re right. I didn’t phrase that particularly well, I’ll accept that.

[00:16:03] Lucie: Sorry.

[00:16:04] David: There was a language barrier. I absolutely agree. But the way they were able to engage and we were able to engage with them, one of my most memorable discussions was having to be translated into Spanish because my Spanish is not great. But it was about the West African context, this very interesting mixture where I was in East Africa discussing with people from the Andes, had projects in the Andes, real experience there, about the potential for their innovation, I would argue, they were looking at climate data in specific ways, and trying to understand how their experience from their context could be relevant for the partners in West Africa.

And so I could bring that back to them, have another discussion with the West African guys, you know, in French about this is what I’ve understood from that and how does this relate and so on. And that richness was just wonderful. I really enjoyed that. I’m sure you have similar experiences where, you know, cutting across these sorts of groups and being that bridge builder, or maybe not a bridge builder, but you know, helping to sort of build that communication between them. It was a great role to play.

[00:17:22] Lucie: Well, I mean, mine was again less perhaps work focused, my examples. But again, because at the end you had set up a continued visit of town for some of the participants who were staying afterwards, and I joined in there. And again, it was bringing together East Africans, West Africans and people from the Andes.

And there, so we were trying to communicate in at least three languages. It was wonderful. But the communication was very easy and I think we all wanted the same thing. So I think it was perhaps also, you know, after an intense, was it four days?

[00:17:55] David: Yeah.

[00:17:55] Lucie: It was nice to also just relax and get to know each other on a different sort of level to having established sort of research commonalities.

[00:18:07] David: That was really nice. I wasn’t at that, but I believe that it was a couple of the Kenyan team who came down and explicitly took time out to have this interaction.

[00:18:16] Lucie: The Kenyan team being INNODEMS.

[00:18:18] David: INNODEMS, yes. And I think it was a very interesting experience and exposure for them as well.

[00:18:23] Lucie: Yeah. Yes, I think they were surprised though, they hadn’t expected to be tour guides, if I understand correctly. They had expected to have a lunch meeting with you and then were invited to be tour guides, which worked very well.

[00:18:39] David: At some point I think I sort of suggested that that would be sensible. How well I communicated that is another…

[00:18:48] Lucie: I’d also never met Vitalis from INNODEMS. So that was really nice to discuss with him. Also because he works on R-Instat. So yeah, we work on similar things, but hadn’t ever properly connected.

[00:18:59] David: He’s just finishing his master’s actually with James. So he’s done very well. The hope is, I think he’ll continue on with further studies again, getting involved in other ways. So it might be that you actually find that is a relationship where he’s someone who could be really interesting to combine with people like our West African team as well, and help build some of those connections further. That’s something for you to think about as well, how to sort of help build some of those links. We’ve got a team in West Africa, we’ve got the teams in Kenya that we work with.

[00:19:27] Lucie: In the mentoring program there were already some of those links, yeah.

[00:19:31] David: Yeah, anyway, this has been fun, this has been good, we could have a number more on the convening itself.

[00:19:37] Lucie: Well, our next meeting will perhaps be on our research method support workshops.

[00:19:41] David: Oh, I look forward to that, yeah.

[00:19:43] Lucie: Thank you, David.