The Third National Forum on Organic Resource Management and Agricultural Technologies (FORMAT III)

17 to 19 September 2002, Village Market Complex, Limuru Rd, Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya

Highlights of FORMAT III Event

• Live demonstrations on use of solar energy, internet and value-added processing of dairy products and plate gum, making of fuel briquettes and water hyacinth crafts

•  Parallel sessions where participants attend the presentations that interest them most

•  Special sessions on the organic resource management in urban areas, trees as organic resources and organic resource management education

• Seventy-three exhibits and product displays will be judged and prizes awarded for innovation and community service

• Contests involving pumpkin growing, compost making and the preparation of traditional African vegetables

Welcome to FORMAT III: Reuse, Recycle and Rethink

Welcome to the third national gathering of the Forum for Organic Resource Management and Agricultural Technologies, or in short FORMAT III.  The organizers of this event are pleased with the diversity and quality of the applicants responding to our nation-wide call for participants.  These applications were distributed to past participants through the mail, posted in daily newspapers and farming magazines and over our internet site www.formatkenya.org.  In total, 440 applications were received by the FORMAT Secretariat, most of them before the advertised deadline.  All of these applications were entered into a computer data base that served as a tool to select the invited participants.  While I will not go into details concerning the selection process, higher priority was given to those seeking to give exhibits and demonstrations, and low priority assigned to applicants who wished only to enter a contest or to present neither talk nor exhibit.  We have no observers at a FORMAT event. 

Next we sought geographical and gender balance.  Then we had the difficult task of declining some applicants because they intended to give very similar exhibits or talks as at last year’s event.  FORMAT must move forward.  Lastly, we eliminated some male applicants because they intended to represent women’s groups, a selection criterion that was proposed at the REFORMAT business meeting.   The organizers were forced to make some difficult decisions in order to reduce the applicants to the 148 participants that may be seated in our venue and supported by our available funds.  During the three days of FORMAT III, there will be 11 sessions with 69 presentations, 73 exhibits, 7 special demonstrations and three contests with 41 contestants.  We are confident that FORMAT III will provide an educational and enjoyable experience for the invited participants and those welcome members of the public attending the event on its final afternoon.

The first FORMAT event was organized in 2000 with the intention of providing new channels of information between otherwise isolated innovators in organic resource management.  We believed that very useful techniques were being developed in an unnecessarily site-specific manner and that rapid benefits would be achieved by bringing interested parties together to display products and demonstrate their skills.  A second, less obvious objective was to foster linkages among extremely different parties within the resource management and development communities in a manner that respected those differences while treating all participants as equals, regardless of their, philosophies, titles or the size of their organizations.  While the words participatory and community-based seemed on everyone’s lips, in reality the same top-down modes of operation remained in effect, in part because organizations were concerned as much with their positions within donor pipelines as with the beneficial outcomes of their activities.  The first FORMAT provided revelation to many of its participants, and subsequently the organizers found it near impossible to track the diversity of collaboration that was forged during the event.  It seemed only logical that we organize another event to see how fruitful those partnerships proved to be.

The success of the first FORMAT event led to the second one that we designated REFORMAT.  At this second event, REFORMAT’s unusual approach to balanced participation through mixed presentations, exhibits and demonstrations came as less of a surprise to most participants.  Representatives from grassroots groups arrived better prepared to deliver talks and post exhibits.  Some technologies had visibly spread among past participants such as the use of natural pesticides and preparation of cooking briquettes fabricated from recycled organics.  Products which were best described as “concoctions” at the first FORMAT event were, only one year later, being better packaged and labeled, and were accompanied by more realistic claims.  We introduced three new contests to the event, stimulating friendly competition and entertaining onlookers.  We introduced parallel sessions, where participants could attend the sessions which interested them most, thereby lengthened time for general discussion.  The REFORMAT event attracted applicants from several different countries (discovered over our www.formatkenya.org internet site) and was covered by local news media.  Despite its avoidance of opening talks by invited dignitaries or the absence of a “high table”, REFORMAT was acclaimed as a leading stakeholder consultation on resource management within Kenya.  That alone was sufficient cause for FORMAT III.

Every successful project has a beginning, middle and end, as it is only through ending that its ultimate goals are achieved.  FORMAT III is likely the last of its kind because we believe that our original purposes in organizing these events, better collaboration and networking among innovators in organic resource management and the more rapid dissemination of their techniques, have become realized.  Perhaps this previous statement should be qualified, FORMAT’s goals have been met to the furthest extent that an annual meeting organized by an informal association can realistically hope to achieve.  This conclusion does not mean that there is no future role for a group such as FORMAT, only that it cannot continue to do the same thing year after year while expecting to sustain significant impacts.   For this reason, we have scheduled an extended discussion on The Future of FORMAT on the last day of this event.  We need to learn from participants if FORMAT should continue and, if so, in which ways it should change.  Informal discussion has posed the following options, keeping in mind that the present strategy of a single annual meeting seems to have achieved its purpose:

c       FORMAT should continue in “electronic” form only through its website www.formatkenya.org, disseminating information submitted by the general public

c       FORMAT should participate in events organized by others throughout Kenya, particularly district agricultural shows, and sponsor its members to those events

c       FORMAT should formalize its operations and offer full-time services to facilitate new and more effective technologies in the area of organic resource management

c       FORMAT should develop a new, limited agenda such as the facilitation of publicly patented technologies or the development and dissemination of information materials, or any other strategy or combination of the above. 

This discussion will play a critical role in the future of FORMAT and we look forward to your guidance.

Special acknowledgement is due to several organizations assisting in FORMAT III.  The Rockefeller Foundation provided the “core” grant to SACRED Africa, an act of charitable generosity without which the event could not be held.  The International Plant Genetic Resources Institute and the International Livestock Research Institute provided supplemental funding to sponsor participants.  The Nation newspaper and Farmer’s Journal agreed to reduced advertisement charges.  Students from the Forum on Agricultural Resource Husbandry serve as assistants to register and provide quality audio-visual services to presenters.  Last, but certainly not least, thanks is due to the FORMAT participants who take extra effort to prepare the attractive and informative exhibits that capture the essence of our events.  As we have stated before, FORMAT III is intended to reward those who strive, often under difficult circumstances, to increase the value and efficiency of organic resource processing and to let them know that their efforts are genuinely appreciated.