Science field shops: An innovative agricultural extension approach for adaptation to climate change, applied with farmers in Indonesia

Abstract

For implementation of climate change adaptation in communities on the islands of Java and Lombok, Indonesia, a new extension approach was designed and carefully further developed while establishing it. It is called “Science Field Shops (SFSs)”. In these “Shops”, farmers, scientists/scholars and (where possible, so ideally) local extension officers meet to discuss and solve vulnerabilities and actual local problems expressed by farmers. In such context, agricultural extension is defined best as: “bringing new knowledge to farmers” and this is coordinated at these SFSs. We use SFSs to temporarily bridge the gap in availability and training of extension intermediaries by using farmer facilitators (FFs). Farmers are confused by consequences of climate change and want answers on questions that are related to local climate problems but also many other issues in growing their crops, among which rice is most important. Giving and discussing answers and predictions demand real dialogues in an agrometeorological learning approach to response farming. Farmers start to believe in their attempts to understand and reduce yield differences with the past and between them, by actively learning about consequences of climate change and how we can jointly fight them in such and otherwise changing environments. Anthropology and climatology are combined.