Farmers and development agents getting a practical training on apple tree management and scion selection in Holeta (photo credit: ILRILIVES).

The Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) project is testing different training approaches and methods such as couples training, mixed-participant training, coaching and mentoring, direct training and training of trainers (ToT). This blog story shares preliminary observations on potential advantages and disadvantages of a mixed-participant training approach used in LIVES.

Traditionally, specific-participant training offers targeted information to specialists such as development agents and farmers separately on the ground that they have different training needs and levels of knowledge and skills. In such contexts, mixing participants who have different training needs and levels of knowledge and skills is not the best way of providing effective task-oriented training. However, specific-participant training programs limit interaction, cross-learning and joint action among farmers, subject matter specialists and development agents.

To address this limitation, the LIVES project is experimenting with mixed-participant training where farmers…