Participatory Learning and Action Research (PLAR)  

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AfricaRice has developed a locally adapted and integrated approach to increase rice productivity in inland-valley production systems in Africa. The approach is based on participatory learning and action-research (PLAR) and integrated rice management (IRM). It is essentially a farmer-participatory, step-wise approach to put inland valleys under rice production using good agricultural principles and practices.

 

PLAR is a bottom-up social learning process to promote technological change through improving farmers’ capacity to exchange knowledge, experiences and practices, to better observe, analyze and take appropriate decisions for action, and to get organized for action. Through the PLAR process, groups of farmers are able to find adaptive responses to site-specific problems and make the best use of available resources and local knowledge as well as research-based understanding of underlying processes.

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