My Curriculum Vitae

Click on the following link to access my up-to-date CV.

TJ Bliss CV

MEG Grant Budget

Here is a first draft of my proposed budget.

Wages
Number of Undergraduate Students	1
Wage per Hour	$0.00
Number of Graduate Students	1
Wage Per Hour	$21.00
Number of Hours Per Week	20
Number of Weeks	12
Cost For Graduate Wages	$5,040
Total Wages	$5,040
Supplies
Laptop	$2,000
Digital Audio Recorders (2)	$200
Digital Video Cameras (2)	$300
Digital Still-Photo Cameras (2)	$250
Pens/notebooks/etc.	$100
Total Supplies	$2,850
Travel
Travel - Malawi
Airfare (2 RT tickets)	$5,500
Food (30 days @ $20/day x 2)	$1,200
Hostel (@ SAFI)	$0
Translator (20 days @ $50/day)	$1,000
Immunizations (x 2)	$200
In-country transportation	$1,036
Travel - 2012 AERA Conference
Airfare (3 RT tickets)	$1,229
Registration/Membership Fees	$385
Hotel (4 nights @ $120/night x 2)	$960
Food (5 days @ $40/day x 3)	$600
Total Travel	$12,110
GRAND TOTAL	$20,000

Funnel Vision

• The United Nations predicts that much of the world's population growth between 2008 and 2050 will occur in developing countries, including all the countries in Africa (Population Reference Bureau 2008).
  
  
• In Malawi, an East African country, the 2010 population estimate was 15.5 million while the projected 2050 population estimate was 37.4 million, an increase 135% (Population Reference Bureau 2010). (Filter: Malawi)
  
  
• Agricultural activities in Malawi comprise 87% of the labor force, with 80% of food production and 65% of agriculture GDP coming from smallholder farms, mostly engaged in growing maize (New Agriculturist, Country Profile –Malawi 2001). Inefficiencies in farming have contributed to 35% of the population of Malawi being undernourished (Population Reference Bureau 2010). (Filter: inefficient smallholder farming)

• Since the 1970’s, widespread and various agriculture extension education efforts among smallholder famers have been enacted to improve food security and crop production at both the national and local levels (Davis 2008). (Filter: agriculture extension education)
  
  
• Research has shown that extension efforts that are tailored to local situations are more effective at effecting change than standardized programs applied systematically across a wider geography (Anderson 2002, cited in Davis 2008). (Filter: localized extension)
  
  
• Farmer Field Schools (FFS) exemplify one model of extension applied to agriculture that is flexible enough to adjust to local cultural and environmental needs (Gallagher 2006). At FFS, small groups of farmers meet regularlymwith an agricultural expert or government extension agent and engage in discovery learning, famer experimentation, and group problem solving (Davis 2008). (Filter: Farmer Field Schools)
  
  
• FFS are in place in all 27 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa and have met with some success in terms of increased productivity and learning (Davis 2008, Tripp 2005). (Filter: FFS in Sub-Saharan Africa)
  
  
• However, as Davis (2008) reports in a review on extension education in Sub-Saharan Africa, “as with many [extension] models worldwide, there has not been enough effort to provide hard evidence of the effectiveness of FFS. Most FFS programs rely on ex post evaluations, which are not able to provide rigorous results as to how the program compares to alternative programs or to the counterfactual situation of having no FFS [traditional apprenticeship]. If there are data, they often remain in the grey literature, and the information is not available to stakeholders who could provide peer review and validation of the methods and results.” (Filter: lack of comparative research on FFS vs. alternative extension models)
  
  
• One recently developed alternative model of extension education in Malawi is the School of Agriculture for Family Independence (SAFI), a privately funded Agriculture Technical School (ATS) that incorporates a 1-year period of formal classroom and lab-based curriculum followed by a 1-year FFS-type learning environment, with instruction provided mainly by faculty from the University of Malawi. (Fitler: Agriculture Technical Schools; SAFI)
  
  
• The purpose of this research is to rigorously describe and compare three models of agricultural education and extension in Malawi: ATS, FFS, and traditional apprenticeship.

Literature Cited

Anderson, J. R. (2002). Ecosystem health and economic development: Rural vision to action. Rural Development Department, World Bank, Washington, DC, U.S.A.

Davis, K. E. (2008). Extension in Sub-Saharan Africa: Overview and assessment of past and current models, and future prospects. Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education 15(3), 15-28.

Gallagher, K. D., Braun, A. R., and Duveskog, D. (2006). Demystifying farmer field school concepts. www.infobridge.org/asp/documents/3200.pdf

New Agriculturist. (2001). Country profile: Malawi. Downloaded from the world wide web on October 14, 2010 http://www.new-ag.info/country/profile.php?a=874

Population Reference Bureau. (2008). “World population highlights,” Population Bulletin 63(3).

Population Reference Bureau. (2010). Data by Geography: Malawi: Summary. Downloaded from the world wide web on October 14, 2010 http://www.prb.org/Datafinder/Geography/Summary.aspx?region=41&region_type=2

Tripp, R. Wijeratne, M. and Piyadasa, V. H. (2005). What should we expect from farmer field schools? A Sri Lanka case study. World Development 33(10), 1705-1720.

My Question - Totally Revised

Dissertation Big Question

What [impact] does the [1-year formal training phase] at [SAFI*] have on the [participation in] and [attitude] of [farmers] [toward] the [FFS**l-type phase]?

[How] does the [1-year formal training phase] at [SAFI] [influence] the [participation in] and [attitude] of [farmers] toward the [Farmer Field School-type phase]?

[How] does the [1-year formal training phase] at [SAFI] [influence] the [participation in] and [attitude] of [farmers] toward the [Farmer Field School-type phase] [compared to farmers in traditional FFS situations]?

How do SAFI farmers' [participation in] and [attitudes toward] the SAFI FFS-type phase compare to [participation] and [attitudes] of non-SAFI farmers in traditional FFS situations?

How do SAFI farmers' [attitudes] and [beliefs] about [agriculture] compare to the [attitudes] and [beliefs] about [agriculture] of non-SAFI farmers in traditional FFS situations?

How do SAFI farmers' [understanding] and [practices] of [agriculture] compare to the [understanding] and [practices] of [agriculture] of non-SAFI farmers in traditional FFS situations?

How do SAFI [alumni's] [understanding] and [practices] of [agriculture] compare to the agricultural [understanding] and [practices] of [alumni] of traditional FFS in [Malawi]?

How do SAFI [participants'] [knowledge], [practices], and [productivity] in [maize farming] compare to maize farmers who have participated in traditional FFS in [Malawi]?

How do SAFI participants' beliefs, knowledge, practices, and productivity relative to maize farming change over time compared to maize farmers who have participated in traditional FFS and to maize farmers who have not participated in extension education in Malawi?

What is the effectiveness of SAFI--in terms of participant beliefs, knowledge, practices and productivity relative to maize farming--compared to traditional FFS and to farming not influenced by extension education in Malawi?

*SAFI = School of Agriculture for Family Independence
**FFS = Farmer Field Schools

Meg Grant Research Question

What does SAFI look like, what do FFS look like and what does traditional smallholder farming look like in Malawi?

How do three models of agricultural education in Malawi (Agriculture Technical Schools, Farmer Field Schools, and traditional apprenticeship) compare?

How do representatives of three models of agricultural education in Malawi--Agriculture Technical School, Farmer Field School, and traditional apprenticeship--compare?

How do Agriculture Technical School, Farmer Field School, and traditional apprenticeship models of agricultural education in Malawi compare?

MEG Grant Research Purpose*

The purpose of this research is to describe and compare three models of agricultural education in Malawi: Agricultural Technical School, Farmer Field School, and traditional apprenticeship.

(*Note - While a research question is appropriate from a positivist perspective, from a post-modernist perspective a research purpose is preferred to a research question. Since Dr. Smith is a postmodernist qualitative researcher, we will be using a research purpose instead of a research question.)

Literature Review

Traditionally, extension in Africa was focused on increasing production, improving yields, training farmers, and transferring technology. Today extension is going beyond simple "transfer to facilitation, beyond training to learning, and includes assisting farmer groups to form, dealing with marketing issues and partnering with a broad range of service providers and other agencies" (Davis 2008).

Many countries have Agricultural Advisory Services run by the government, but these are often inefficient and rife with waste because extension agents are not well trained and dissemination of information is slow and nonhomogenous (Davis 2008).

There are issues with measuring the impact of extension efforts, especially in linking cause and effect quantitatively (Davis 2008).

At the same time, extension has been shown to have significant positive effects on knowledge, adoption of techniques and skills, and productivity (Birkhaeuser et al. 1991).

The magnitude of extension impacts is highest in countries where farmers have access to schooling, technology, and extension (Evenson 1997).

In the 1970's, Integrated Rural Development Projects (IRDPs) were established in multiple African nations. These programs included extension and research efforts but often neglected training, linkages with research, and proper management (Anderson 2002; Davis 2008).

IRDPs were also ineffective because they tried to apply a standard model to a myriad of local situations. These inefficiencies led to the development of multiple models of extension including (but not limited to) training and visits (T&V), participatory approaches, farming systems research, farmer technical schools, and farmer field schools (Davis 2008). These models of extension allow for adaptation of extension efforts to local conditions and allow for flexibility in program modalities and administrations.

The farmer field school (FFS) approach is an especially intriguing recent development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). FFS are generally composed of 20-25 farmers who meet informally and regularly (viz. once a week) with an expert facilitator. Learning activities include discovery learning, farmer experimentation, and group action (Davis 2008). FFS are geared toward a variety of agricultural subjects, ranging from food security to animal husbandry (Davis 2008) and such schools can be found in at least 27 SSA countries, including Malawi (Braun et al. 2005). To date, there has been little research conducted examining the impact of FFS on economy, productivity or learning (Davis 2008).

The School of Agriculture for Family Independence (SAFI) in Malawi is a hybrid of a modified FFS model and a technical trade school model. Students at SAFI participate in a formal classroom and "lab"-based curriculum on campus for 1 year and then return to their farms for a second year. The "on-farm" portion of the program is essentially a FFS situation, where under the guidance of expert facilitators, farmers apply the knowledge and skills gained in their first year.

The Past Few Weeks

A few weeks ago I had a great discussion about international agricultural and extension education with another EIME student, Moses Khombe. A few years ago, with funding and support from NuSkin, Moses co-founded an agriculture technical school in the village of Mtalimanja in his home country of Malawi. This school has about 10 faculty and 70 students in a 2-year program. I expressed to Moses my interest in studying the educational aspects of agricultural extension in developing countries and he got me in contact with the Dr. Evans Chipala, director of the school, called the School of Agriculture for Family Independence (SAFI). Dr. Chipala expressed interest in collaborating on educational research questions at his school. The trick now is fine tuning a research question and objective that fulfills my passion and still serves the best interest of the school. This shouldn't be too hard, since my passion is understanding and improving agricultural extension education in developing countries and the goal of SAFI is "teaching Malawi farmers to thrive, not just survive, on their small farms" (Nourish the Children, Global Destination Report, NuSkin, Jan. 2008).

At the same time I have been developing a relationship with Moses and Dr. Chipala, I have also been working with Dr. Leigh Smith in the Department of Teacher Education here at BYU. Dr. Smith specializes in teacher perception studies and qualitative research, an area of educational research I find particularly interesting. We have begun meeting weekly to discuss writing a MEG grant proposal to do research at SAFI. Through our first discussion last week, we realized that we know very little about the state of agricultural extension in Africa - and Malawi especially. So, for the past week, I have been intensively scouring the literature to get a better holistic view of the situation. Lucky for us, there is a Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education where much has been published in the past 20 years about this topic. I have a much better understanding today about the state of agriculture research and extension education in Africa than I did 6 days ago, though very little is written about Malwai itself.