Organization and Performance of Cotton Sectors in Africa ... - infoDev

ANNEX A10. METHODOLOGY FOR FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSIONON FARMER TYPESIn several of the study countries, formal household surveys provide data oncotton yields and input use that can be stratified to show the performance ofdifferent categories of farmers. However, the difficulties of collecting reliablelabor data in such surveys means that most of them do not contain informationon labor use by different categories of cotton farmers.To provide insights into labor use at modest cost, focus groups undertookdiscussions in seven of the nine study countries (all except Cameroon andBenin). Discussions were undertaken in two (Burkina Faso, Mali) to six(Mozambique) villages per country, with efforts made to compare acrossregions or districts where there were considered to be important geographicaldifferences in performance (Mozambique, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia) andalso between more and less accessible villages within an area (Tanzania,Mozambique).In all cases except Mozambique, a single group of informants providedinformation on cotton farmers in their village. There were commonly 5–10informants per village. In Mozambique, a larger number of respondents weredivided into groups (based on level of cotton production) with each groupproviding information on its own activities, albeit in the presence of peoplefrom other groups.The first activity in each focus group discussion was a participatory rankingexercise based on the principles of wealth ranking. Where possible, 76 the nameof every head of household in the village was recorded; then informants wereasked to place the cards in piles according to the level of cotton productionachieved by the household in a “normal” year. In most cases, this grouping producedthree or four piles. If one pile (typically the lower producers in ESA) wasmuch larger than the others, the researchers asked for a further disaggregationof this group. In Mozambique, farmers were asked to divide themselves intogroups; after verification of each farmer’s yield, each group responded in turn.Once the groups had been identified, the informants were asked to describethe characteristics of households in each group, thereby covering demography,income sources, and food production, as well as cotton production. This analysisgave a picture of a typical household in each group. A crop budget was thendrawn up for each group for one hectare (or acre) of cotton in a typical recentseason. 77The overall assessment is that the focus group discussions were a cost-effectiveway of collecting reasonably reliable data on cotton production activities by differentgroups of farmers. However, the following issues are noted:■The method tends to accentuate intergroup differences at the expense ofintragroup variation. Thus, top groups are characterized as being able torise above many of the problems that constrain poorer households, and the134 POULTON, LABASTE, AND BOUGHTON