Cairo, Egypt - The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched "Enhancing crop productivity and livestock production in New Lands" project in four Egyptian governorates, in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MALR), funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

During the project's Inception workshop, it was announced that the project will be implemented in close collaboration and coordination with concerned government line departments at national, governorate and district levels and relevant NGOs and CBOs at the community level.

FFS to promote innovative climate-smart agricultural practices and natural resource management techniques

The project aims to improve the agricultural production and productivity of 3,440 female and male smallholder farmers and youth from marginalized rural families, through the effective establishment and implementation of Farmer Field Schools (FFS) to promote innovative Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices, as well as Natural Resource Management (NRM) practices and techniques.

Four Egyptian governorates were selected to implement the project, namely; Kafr El Sheikh, Beni Suef, Minya and Aswan, in order to enable smallholder farmers to boost their incomes, increase profitability and diversify their livelihoods in line with Egypt’s 2030 Sustainable Agricultural Development Strategy.

“The project contributes to achieving FAO’s strategic objective on the application of innovative practices and technologies that are piloted, tested or scaled up by producers to sustainably increase productivity, address climate change and environmental degradation;” especially that practical guidance is needed to improve water management, soil fertility, plant protection, crop diversification, animal health, increasing crop productivity, livestock production and post-harvest value addition, and meeting the rising food quality standards.” Nasr El-Din Haj El-Amin, FAO Representative in Egypt, said in his opening speech.

“Agricultural adaptation and climate change issues in Egypt pose a threat in terms of access to food, especially in rural areas. This project will provide support in this regard via technology transfer mechanisms and capacity building to facilitate adaptation to climate change consequences, with a special focus on the agricultural sectors and small-scale agricultural producers, for whom FAO will provide the technical assistance required to establish and implement effective Farmer Field Schools (FFS) that promote innovative CSA and NRM practices and techniques” Hany Darwish, SAIL Project Executive Director and FFS National Project Coordinator, MALR, said.

The project will be implemented in the villages of Matobos area in Kafr El-Sheikh governorate, West El-Fashn area in Beni Suef governorate, West Samalut area in El-Minya governorate, and of Wadi Al-Sa`ida / Wadi Al-Naqra, in Aswan governorate.

The project’s main activities include reviewing and updating preliminary social and economic studies, analyzing the current situation of families’ needs in the targeted villages, identifying and training FFS facilitators on climate-smart farming practices and technologies for natural resource management and on FFS methodology. These also include, establishing FFSs for men and women farmers, monitoring and evaluating the performance of FFS facilitators, establishing FFS databases at the governorate level, and support the FFS network to continuously exchange information and lessons learned.