“At village level, the PIP approach is the basis for collaboration between community members, and as a third generation PIP farmer I make household visits to other generations of PIP farmers to ask them for technical advice. They do so with pleasure, something that was not done before PIP.”
Increased diversity on PIP farms is noticed by the number of crops, with PIP farmers having 16-19 different perennial, annual and vegetable crops on the farm, while non-PIP farmers have only 12. More vegetables and some extra perennial crops contribute to this difference, with the increased use of kitchen gardens as an important driver. Some of the new crops are cash crops, and income from cash crops has increased by 85-100% for all PIP generations. Noteworthy too is that PIP farmers, in particular those working longer with PIP, invest significantly more in livestock than non-PIP farmers, especially in cows and goats. Livestock keeping is an important element of farm resilience and is now being more frequently integrated on PIP farms.