The visit to the farmers’ field was conducted on 9th September, 2020. The objective of the visit was to select farmers’ field that had been randomly sampled by the site technician and Ward Agricultural Officer (WAO) for implementation of the on-farm trials. A total of 15 farms had been sampled. Each of the sampled farms belonged to a farmer in an agricultural farmers’ group within Nkarini location. Selection was guided by the suitability of the farms for the implementation of the on-farm trial. The evaluation of the suitability was based on the size of the land provided to the project by the farmer, homogeneity of the land, accessibility and the willingness of the farmer to work with the project during the entire period of the trials.
The on-farm trials will be used to out-scale the best performing technologies from the project on-station experiment. The trials will be Researcher Designed-Farmer managed (Type II). The farmer-managed trials will then be used as training and demonstration farms to other farmers (Trainers of Trainers) to promote up take of the technologies among the community (IR 5).
