Share and Share Alike

One difficulty that Seeds of Life is constantly dealing with is technology diffusion (which I had not expected). Well, I had expected the challenge of disbursing new seed varieties and farming techniques from the capital to the rural farmers around the country. But it is the poor transfer of knowledge of people and organizations at the same level as each other which was somewhat surprising (the organizational struggles are not too surprising, at least when I am in one of my more cynical moods, but very damaging to development). For example, Seeds of Life has been running a version of the “Drums on Farms” program for a few years now. The program uses relatively cheap metal drums that are air-tight and store approximately 200kg of seed/grain. Seeds of Life uses drums manufactured by a local company as well (East Timor Roofing). Farmers love these drums, and many of the seed production groups utilize them for community seed storage. Yet at recent seed production group meetings, where representatives from each of the 40 informal seed production groups (per district) met in the district capitals to share experiences and provide feedback, Seeds of Life quickly learned that very few participants knew how to remove the seeds from the air-tight drum. There is a simple circular opening at the top which is sealed (see photo), yet many groups were confounded when it came time to remove a small amount of seed (rather than dumping out all of the seed). 

One of East Timor Roofing's air-tight drums, with the single opening on top.

In one particular meeting, only one participant knew how to do it. Timidly at first, she raised her hand when asked who was able to easily remove the seed. She described a process that Seeds of Life had seen in another far-away district, where a can is tied with string and then submerged into the seed with a stick, using the string to then remove the now-full can. The technique is simple and utilizes locally-available materials, yet very few people knew of this technology(*). Staff here note this lack of diffusion is due to the insular nature of communities in Timor-Leste, with the smallest administrative unit (Aldeias) being no more than a family cluster of houses. Little is shared between families, they say, and distrust that extends back through the opposing sides during Indonesian occupation is always present. I suppose that is where the role of government comes in, to spread knowledge beyond family and party boundaries…

Example of one way to easily remove seed/grain from the storage drum.

The lack of people-to-people knowledge sharing in Timor-Leste is mirrored by the lack of organization-to-organization sharing. In particular, there is no sharing of experiences amongst (international) NGOs. Despite the resounding success of this small-scale storage via drums, many NGOs have launched their own programs over the last few years to find a different solution, including large-capacity silos and similar community-level storage facilities. They wasted time and money on projects that proved unsuccessful, while the proven solution was being implemented by other NGOs all along. Without coordination between NGOs, no one program director will know what intervention has been tried before, or who is doing something similar nearby. And even if they do coordinate, once they leave they often take that knowledge with them, as there seems to be no institutional memory at many NGOs. Certainly this problem is not limited to Timor-Leste, but perhaps Timor-Leste could follow other countries lead and implement government agencies to coordinate amongst NGO programs. Still, it would be in the best interest of the NGOs themselves to do more research and establish best practices. Some agencies started to do this a few years ago, and agencies working with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries continue to work on it, but more of an effort should be made by all.

(*) And it is a “technology,” a word we too-often confuse with necessitating “high-tech solutions” to problems. There are other terms, such as “appropriate technology,” but I think just “technology” can suffice.