The adoption of agricultural innovations depends on many factors. In the Philippines adoption has often been slow; a series of factors all contributing. Amongst these are a separation of government research and extension agencies, travel and funding constraints for both parties and difficulties with linking farmers and knowledge providers, including NGOs. The Community Agricultural Technologies program is an initiative aimed at these particular challenges to adoption.

A series of workshops will introduce concepts successfully proven in Thailand, Vietnam and Laos to support extension workers in facilitating adoption of innovations by farmers. A suite of follow-on mini-projects will then be used to facilitate action learning processes, introduced to extension staff via the workshops. These will test best practice adoption, and link Australian and Philippine researchers involved in ACIAR projects to NGOs and extension groups working with farming communities.