MHAC Mini-Training Centres (MTCs)
MHAC has so far established 27 Mini-Training Centres (MTCs) in different communities to provide effective and sustainable extension to small-scale farmers. Organized as community based organizations (CBOs), the MTC is an approach that empowers farmers to be trainers of other farmers in their localities. To date, more than 5000 people have been trained at these MTCs. Sixteen additional MTCs are under way in the next two years of the Tudor Trust funded COMIT project.
The fostering of MTCs by MHAC is a response to the need to enable trained Biointensive farmer community groups to continue to build their capacity post-training, and to provide extension activities to other farmers in their area, especially those who cannot afford to come to MHAC for training.
MTCs have a GROW BIOINTENSIVE demonstration site where trained members conduct weekly courses for the farmers of their community on pertinent lessons of sustainable farm development learned at MHAC. Initially this training is done with technical support from MHAC extensionists until the community becomes empowered to carry on its activities independently. These mini-centers eventually become sites for MHAC student community attachment placings for our 2-year students.
MTCs organize farmers exchange visits among themselves for experience sharing and learning from each other to further improve their skills. They are encouraged to recognize their indigenous technical knowledge. They are also encouraged to develop internal income generation. This often involves connecting them to appropriate market outlets and/or packaging and value adding training to make their local products more competitive.
MTCs provide an ideal set-up for communities to discover and further their own local potential and an opportunity to create “cooperatives” that enable them to pool their resources and compete effectively in the market place.
Other features of an MTC include:
• Empowerment of farmers with knowledge and expertise to become change agents.
• Establishment of viable and profitable income generating projects like bee keeping.
• Enhancement of farmers’ ability to plan, monitor and evaluate farm enterprise.
• Farmers sourcing for subject matter specialists in particular topics of their interest.
• Gained vision to organize the communities into cooperatives in order to increase their (farmers) bargaining power for their products.
• Exposure of farmers to a variety of knowledge from different development agents in the community.
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