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Business and Farmer Field Schools

Today there are about 570 million farms in the world, most of which are small and supply nearly 80% of the food produced in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. Small farmers who work to increase their income often have limited capacity and know-how to compete and take advantage of new market opportunities arising from urbanization, liberalization and globalization. Farmers must consistently adapt their farm business to changes in the market while improving efficiency, profitability and income.

Drawing from the concept FFS, FAO developed the Farm Business School (FBS) approach to assist small-farmers in this process.  The Farm Business School is:

• ‘entrepreneurial’ and relies on simple decision support tools, checklists and strategic questions;
• focused on enhancing efficiency of productivity and on making “business choices” using a learning-by-doing approach and participatory methods.

FFS (production centered) and FBS (business centered) have complementary objectives and should be jointly implemented for farmers to improve farm management decisions. As in the FFS, learning happens in the farm and covers the production cycle from planning to marketing with practical exercises based on available resources. Together with a facilitator, farmers work in small groups at their own pace and agreed time.

Building knowledge and skills to make farms more profitable
FAO supported, adapted and implemented the FBS approach in dozens of countries, mostly in Asia and Africa, including Nepal, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Malawi.

An estimated 400 000 farmers – 20–40 % women – have been trained in business-oriented field school approaches. Farmer business schools, farmer marketing schools and related approaches continue to grow around the world.

Over the years, FBSs have shown to support farmers to benefit from global changes, by shifting the focus of extension services to support market-orientated farming.