Preparing relay peasants to become intermediaries in the dissemination of local agroecological knowledge: the case of three West African territories

Long denigrated, peasant knowledge is now seen as a stock of knowledge potentially available to support agroecological transitions in both the South and the North. Its often tacit nature, however, makes it difficult to transmit on a wider scale and via traditional training methods. Based on these observations, the research focused on experimenting with an agroecology training curriculum based on doing, i.e. giving work situations a central place in learning. The experiment was carried out in three West African countries (Benin, Senegal and Togo). An analysis of the results, based on rules of action formulated by the learners at the end of the training and twelve months afterward, reveals that the training provided increased the participants' power to act. Notably, they put this power to work in the service of the farming community to which they belong. In fact, a significant proportion of the peasants trained act as intermediaries in the circulation of the local knowledge they have learnt, and in this way help to promote the emergence of collective agricultural development projects.