Paul Van Mele

Paul Van Mele is an agricultural scientist from Ghent University, Belgium. Since 1992, he lectured and worked in various multi-disciplinary research projects in Africa, Asia and South America. His PhD explored Vietnamese fruit farmers' knowledge on pest management (Wageningen University, 2000). He co-authored Ants as Friends (see English pdf version for download below), which is now translated into four languages. He also edited Way out of the Woods and co-edited Innovations in Rural Extension: Case Studies from Bangladesh.

In 2004, his video project on seed health with women in Bangladesh won an international award for effective communication from the International Visual Communication Association in London. Two years later, these farmer training videos had been translated into five languages, reaching millions of farmers in Asia and Africa.

Currently Program Leader on Partnerships, Learning and Innovation Systems at the Africa Rice Center (WARDA), his research interests include local innovations, seed systems, bridging local and scientific knowledge, stimulating negotiation between actors in the value chain, developing farmer-education videos, and scaling-up of participatory research & learning.

Paul is a participatory learning and extension specialist. He has worked extensively throughout South and SE Asia, West Africa, South America and the Mediterranean on projects with FAO, CABI, IPGRI, IRRI and WARDA.

These projects have involved capacity building, assessing knowledge systems, extension through learner-centred video production, facilitating institutional learning and strengthening collaboration between research, extension and end-user communities. His work has involved the extensive development of training curricula and materials.

See sample writings below and in Publications

Implications of on-farm research for local knowledge - Ecological Economics 2008

Sinzogan A.A.C., P. Van Mele and J.-F. Vayssieres, 2008; Implications of on-farm research for local knowledge related to fruit flies and the weaver ant Oecophylla longinoda in mango production; International journal of Pest Management, 54 (3), p. 241-246.

Abstract

We interviewed half of the mango-growers in northern Benin, including 15 farmers involved in a regional fruit ﬂy project, and held focus group discussions with women fruit-pickers. They were asked about pest management and their knowledge of a weaver ant, Oecophylla longinoda. All considered low yields due to fruit ﬂies to be the principal constraint upon mango production, estimating economic losses to be between 20 and 45%. None could recognize damage during the ﬁrst 2 days after fruit ﬂy egg deposition. On-farm research persuaded farmers to stop using insecticides and it also changed negative perceptions of Oecophylla. Over 80% of the farmers involved in onfarm research, compared to 25% of those not involved, reported Oecophylla to be beneﬁcial. All fruit-pickers knew that ants protected mango from fruit ﬂies, with 60% attributing better mango quality in terms of appearance, shelf-life and sweetness to the presence of Oecophylla. Nevertheless, 40% of the pickers still considered weaver ants a nuisance pest during harvest. Ways of reducing this nuisance need to be developed for Oecophylla to gain wider acceptance by mango-growers.