Exploring ways to scale direct-seeded rice in Sta. Cruz, Zambales: a Living Labs Approach

While it offers a host of advantages, such as significantly reducing labor costs and methane emissions, direct-seeded rice has failed to gain traction in the Philippines. Only 43% of farmers prefer DSR, particularly during the dry season. Employing the Living Labs Approach, this study set out to unpack ways to scale DSR in Sta. Cruz, Zambales. Living Labs is an approach that values co-creation and intensive stakeholder engagement in creating usable technologies or strategies for intended users. Sta. Cruz was chosen as the research site as it has evidence of farmers employing DSR as a crop establishment method. The Collective Approach to Technology Adoption served as the main theoretical framework for this research. Multiple methods, including in-depth interviews, surveys, and policy brokering, were employed, along with capacity-building activities, to address the research questions posed by this study. High interest among locals; assistance from various stakeholders, both within and outside Sta. Cruz; transdisciplinarity and strong support from local executives, as evidenced by their passage of a local ordinance supporting wider DSR promotion in the town, contributed to the DSR scaling efforts.