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Farmer Field Schools (FFS) are an intensive training approach introduced in the last decade in many developing countries to promote knowledge and uptake of ecologically sensible production approaches, and in particular, integrated pest management which minimises pesticide use. Because of the high training cost, the viability of the program depends [...]

Eight researchers from Ghana and Benin, with different backgrounds but all co-operating within the Convergence of Sciences project, conducted diagnostic studies as a first step of their research aimed at developing technologies together with resource-poor farmers. The purpose of including diagnostic studies was to increase the likelihood that the resulting [...]

The article is an introduction to a series of articles about diagnostic studies carried out by eight PhD students in Ghana and Benin. These studies form a prelude to their experimental action research with groups of farmers to develop technologies that work in local conditions and are acceptable to farmers. A [...]

This publication examines five cases of farmer field research in Indonesia.

Este estudio intenta analizar algunas experiencias relevantes de innovación con productores de pequeña escala, destacando eventuales enfoques específicos que busquen la equidad de género.

The agricultural extension service in Uganda has in the last 40 years used a variety of approaches to disseminate technologies developed by researchers and other partners. These included regulatory, advisory and educational approaches. The regulatory and advisory approaches were top-bottom and non-participatory in nature.

Using survey-data from Peru, this paper evaluates the impact of a pilot farmerfield-school (FFS) program on farmers’ knowledge of integrated pest management (IPM) practices related to potato cultivation. We use both regression analysis controlling for participation and a propensity score matching approach to create a comparison group similar to the FFS [...]

This book presents experiences and successful case studies of integrated pest management (IPM) from developed and developing countries and from major international centres and programmes. It contains 39 chapters by many contributors addressing themes such as: emerging issues in IPM, including biotechnology, pesticide policies and socioeconomic considerations (8 chapters).

The International Potato Center used the farmer field school (FFS) model in several of its research and development activities on potato and sweet potato integrated pest, disease and crop management as a platform for participatory research (PR) and/or farmer learning. Four approaches are roughly distinguished based on how the FFS [...]