The following three questions form the basis of farmers’ discussions and learning in the first workshop where farmers are introduced to the soil health topic. The questions serve to anchor the workshop session in what farmers already know about soil degradation and rehabilitation processes. They will also allow us as partners to explore farmers’ local foundational beliefs/knowledge about soils in different socioecological contexts.
The session is run like a focus group discussion around the following questions:
- How do you recognize a good soil from a bad soil? What characteristics are used to assess the differences?
- What causes soils to become bad/degraded/non-productive?
- Once a soil has become degraded, what can be done to restore it to productive condition?
There is additional rich information about farmers’ nuanced local knowledge and beliefs about soils that can be drawn out by asking two additional questions:
- Which crops are suited to which types of soils and why?
- Which management practices are suited to specific soils and why?
Once the POM and other initial tests/demos have been done and farmers have understood more about the significance of carbon in their soils, ask a final question:
- What are your (the farmer’s) ideas for interventions with the potential for enhancing soil carbon content? (These could become actual treatments to be tested by interested farmers.)