Impact of trainings on knowledge, skill, behaviour and income of farmers living around peatlands: case study in Riau Province

Abstract

Peatlands in Indonesia have been objected to draining, burning and converting into agriculture lands causing huge greenhouse gas emissions and triggering climate change. To reduce emissions on peatland but still keep maintaining community livelihoods, farmers need to be trained with best practices on peatland uses and management. Under the Haze Free Sustainable Livelihoods Project, three trainings have been conducted, namely training on nursery and land preparation without burning, training on post harvests processing of fish and corn, and training on honeybee cultivation. The training participants are community who live in and around the Peatland Hydrological Unit of Kampar-Indragiri Rivers, Riau. An impact assessment of the completed trainings has been conducted which employe four-level evaluation model as proposed by Kirkpatrick (1994). The results indicatesthat all of the trainings improve participants’ knowledge and skill. Moreover, the honeybee cultivation training has also transformed participants’ behaviour to be more preserve and maintain nectarpollen and resin producing trees, pollen and sap. The trainings, however, are yet to affect household income although an increase of profit has been recorded on some champion participants.