Programme de bourses "Echanges Universitaires"

Application of the Structured Mental Model Approach (SMMA) to analyse the Sustainability of a new Cultivation and Livestock Feeding Method in Nicaragua

The aim of the thesis was to asses if a research project involving framers in Nicaragua had had an influence on farmers’ perception of their livelihood.

The SMMS was conducted in the context of the development project “Realizing the benefits of cover crop legumes in smallholder crop-livestock systems of the hillsides of Central America”. The ETH Zurich is running this project in Nicaragua in cooperation with local partners. The project aims to increase farmers’ acess to natural capital with the implementation of a new cultivation method. Canavalia brasiliensis (canavalia) is introduced into the traditional crop rotation. The plant characteristics lead to the assumption that canvalia has the potential to ameliorate soil conditions which results in higher harvest yields.

More precisely the goal of the thesis was threefold:

• First to analyze farmers’ mental models and compare them to those of experts.
• Second to examine farmers’ system understanding, risk perception and perception about changes in their access to livelihood capitals due to the implementation of a new cultivation method and compare it to experts’ understanding and perception.
• Third to analyze farmers’ agent network and compare them to the experts’ farmer agent network.

To reach the targeted goals the analysis was conducted with the Structured Mental Modal Approach (SMMA). For the conduction of the study 14 experts from Switzerland and Nicaragua were interviewed. Moreover twenty farmers were interviewed. 10 involved in the project and 10 not involved in the project (constituting the control group).

The SMMA results show that the SMMA is suitable to analyze the long-term impact of a project in the field of development cooperation. The comparison of the mental models of experts and formers showed that the mental models differed in all project specific issues. The most important differences were:

• The farmers do not associate the technical assistance with education.
• The farmers do not see and influence of the harvest yield on financial capital.
• The farmers do not know the reasons for the degradation of the soil quality which they observe.
• The farmers do not know that an over dosage of artificial fertilizer may influence negatively their natural capital.

Further the findings show the mental models of farmers involved in the project do not sufficiently differ from those of farmers not involved in the project. Therefore no impact of the project on farmers’ mental models could be showed. These finding demonstrate that the influence of the intervention is low to negligible.

The SMMA showed that the farmers perceive a change in their access to natural capital and relate these changes to their participation in the project. Farmers’ stated: due to the new cultivation method the observed an increase in maize harvest. Moreover they perceived that thanks to new fodder their cows were giving more milk.

The discussion of the research findings it is suggested that a sustainable impact of the project may only be achieved if the human capital of the farmers is affected. To achieve this, farmers have to be involved more intensively in the project. Farmers have to be better schooled about the project and have to get more responsibility.

Contact

Regina Schöll and Anna Mosimann
Department of Geography, Social and Industrial Ecology
University Zurich (UZH)
Winterthurerstrasse 190
8057 Zürich
E-Mail: regina.schoell@geo.uzh.ch
E-Mail: annamo@ethz.ch

Research collaborator
Jorge Luis Martínez Rayo
Department of Research of the Faculty of Agriculture
Universidad Católica del Trópico Seco (UCATSE)
Estelí, Nicaragua
E-Mail: jmartin@catie.ac.cr