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March 11, 2010

ACDI/VOCA Wins 2010 ALINe Award for Innovative Farmer Feedback Tool


Giving smallholder farmers a voice underlies ACDI/VOCA’s values. In working to empower people to succeed in the global economy that means giving farmers a voice even in the development programs that serve them—to better provide the services farmers need, want and can use.


ALINe recently recognized ACDI/VOCA’s people-centric work with a 2010 ALINe Farmer Voice Award for our programming in the Philippines. ALINe singled out our program for the honor because it regularly invites farmers to rate the quantity and quality of services they receive through our ACDI/VOCA’s tool—“Participatory Farmers Adoption and Results Monitoring” (Par FARM).


Through it, staff documents feedback on how well we are serving our beneficiaries who are farmers growing cocoa, coconuts and rice. ACDI/VOCA staff quantifies the feedback to show successes, make improvements and address challenges. In this way, ACDI/VOCA staff has documented that beneficiary farmers benefited from our trainings and also developed a positive outlook about themselves. It identified problems which ACDI/VOCA responded to, such as the quality of seedlings distributed by contractors and cases of delayed delivery by local partners. Our project staff use this feedback to also report performance to the donor.


ACDI/VOCA is one of nine winners from entrants from 20 countries. The winners include initiatives to help farmers assert their land rights, get systematic feedback on extension services, and farmer-to-farmer radio learning programs.


ALINe is an organization that promotes innovative best practices in agriculture development. ALINe Director Yvonne Pinto says, “We are thrilled to make awards to such a diverse group of initiatives. The award winners show how development programs can increase impact by responding to smallholder farmers’ own priorities. They also help farmers become more demanding citizens and consumers. We believe the award winners can act as agents of good practice for the sector.”


For more information