Applying Improved Management Practices or Technologies

Method: Routine monitoring, beneficiary-based baseline/endline survey

Source: Questionnaire, monitoring checklist/form, diary, tracking record

Who Collects: Implementing partner staff

From Whom: Individual beneficiaries

Frequency of Collection: Data will be on an ongoing/rolling/monthly basis.

Frequency of Reporting: Data will be reported in both the baseline and final performance reports.

Baseline Value Info: Baseline value is zero

Unit of Measure: Number (of individual beneficiaries)

Calculation: This is a count of the total number of individual beneficiaries who have applied activity-promoted improved management practices or technologies.

How to Count Life of Award (LOA): LOA values are the reported values at the end of the award counting only the unique number of individual beneficiaries, without double counting, who applied the practice/technology. Or LOA values will be generated from the endline survey.

Direction of change: + (more is better).

Sex: Female, Male

This indicator measures the total number of individual activity beneficiaries in the activity who have applied improved management practices and/or technologies promoted by the donor-funded activity anywhere within the food and agriculture system during the reporting period. These individuals must be beneficiaries of the activity and may include:

• Farmers, and other primary sector producers of food and nonfood crops, agro-forestry products, apiaries, and natural resource-based products, including non-timber forest products such as fruits, seeds, and resins;

• Individuals in the private sector, such as entrepreneurs, input suppliers, traders, processors, manufacturers, distributors, service providers, and wholesalers and retailers;

• Individuals in government, such as policy makers, extension workers, and natural resource managers, and

• Individuals in civil society, such as researchers or academics, and non-governmental and community organization staff.

“Improved management practices or technologies” are those promoted by the activity as a way to increase producer’s productivity, resilience, and/or address biotic and abiotic production constraints. The improved management practices and technologies are agriculture related, including those that address climate change adaptation or climate change mitigation. Implementing partners promoting one or a package of specific management practices and technologies report practices under categories of types of improved management practices or technologies. The indicator should count those specific practices promoted by the activities, not any improved practice.

It is common for these activities to promote more than one improved technology or management practice to farmers and other individuals. This indicator allows the tracking of the total number of participants that apply any improved management practice or technology during the reporting period and the tracking of the total number of participants that apply practices or technologies in specific management practice and technology type categories.

• Count the beneficiaries if they have applied a management practice or technology promoted in the project at least once in the reporting period. Count the producer beneficiaries who applied improved management practices or technologies regardless of the size of the plot on which practices were applied.

• Count each beneficiary only once per year in the applicable sex disaggregate category to track the number of individuals applying the promoted management practice or technology type. If more than one participant in a household applies improved technologies, count each participant in the household who does so.

• Count each individual once per management practice or technology type once per year under the appropriate management practice/technology type disaggregate. Individuals can be counted under a number of different management practices/technology types in a reporting period. For example:

• If a beneficiary applied more than one improved technology type during the reporting period, count the participant under each technology type applied.

• If an activity promotes a technology for multiple benefits, the participant applying the technology may be reported under each relevant management practice/technology type category. For example, a farmer who uses drought-tolerant seeds could be reported under Crop Genetics and Climate Adaptation/Climate Risk Management depending on the purpose(s) or benefit(s) for which the activity is being promoted to participant farmers.

• Count a beneficiary once per reporting period regardless of how many times she/he applied an improved practice/technology type. For example, a farmer has access to irrigation through the project activity and can now cultivate a second crop during the dry season in addition to the rainy season. Whether the farmer applies the improved seed to her plot during one season and not the other, or in both the rainy and dry season, she would only be counted once in the Crop Genetics category under the Management Practice/Technology type disaggregate (and once under the Irrigation category).

• Count a beneficiary once per practice/technology type category, regardless of how many specific practices/technologies under that technology type category she/he applied; e.g., an activity promotes improved plant spacing and planting on ridges, and if a participant applies both practices, she/he would be counted once under the Cultural Practices category.

• If a lead farmer cultivates a plot used for training, e.g., a demonstration plot used for Farmer Field Days or Farmer Field School, the lead farmer should be counted as a beneficiary applying improved practices/technologies for this indicator.

This is a snapshot indicator designed to capture farmer applications only for the reporting period. If an activity is a follow-on of a previously funded activity, individuals who applied the selected management practice before this award constitute the baseline. Individuals who continue to apply the activity-promoted management practice during the activity period get counted for applying the technology even if they weren’t directly touched by the intervention in the reporting period (if the partner continues to track information on former participants). However, this also means that yearly totals can NOT be summed to count application by unique individuals over the life of the activity.

This is a BHA/USAID indicator (A03).