Scaling up participatory development in agricultural settlements

The Promoting Multifunctional Household Environments (PMHE) Project was conducted to support and guide farmers of Mahaweli for sustainable agricultural development. The farmers suffered due to the Mahaweli Development Programme (MDP) for construction of a dam in the largest river "Mahaweli". Due to this programme, the farmers were most affected socially and economically by poor market prices on paddy farming. So, The PMHE Project entered the Mahaweli arena in the early 1990s to provide farmers with the knowledge and skills to support other farmers in activities such as farm planning, farmer experimentation and group building. This approach was a very effective way of sustaining the process of participatory development among the farmers.