Annual Meeting Jamaica 2019

Effective and efficient agricultural extension and rural advisory services (RAS) are fundamental to support rural people to face existing and emerging challenges, and to improve their incomes and livelihoods, thus contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. GFRAS was initiated in 2010 to provide advocacy and leadership on pluralistic and demand-driven RAS for sustainable development. The forum includes networks of RAS stakeholders at regional, sub-regional and national levels, and actors from all sectors and domains involved in or related to RAS.

The 10th GFRAS Annual Meeting, whose topic is "Role of RAS in Climate Change & Disaster Risk Management" will take place at Royalton Negril, Jamaica between 30 September and 4 October 2019. 

In line with the theme, a side-event will discuss the role of the Farmer Field School (FFS) approach to improve farmers’ capacity to prepare and respond to increased climate variability and extreme weather events.

The side-event will:

• Demonstrate how and why the FFS learning methodology effectively increases farmers’ capacity to innovate and respond in an informed and collective way to challenges facing their farming and livelihood system, and the role of RAS in this process;
• Showcase how FFS can serve as a platform for  early warning systems for impending threats and hazards and build safety nets to better cope with negative impacts;
• Provide examples of how the approach helped affected communities and households return to their normal – or even an improved – status as they recovered from a hazard.
• Guide stakeholders in the agriculture, food security and DRR sectors in risk-prone areas on how FFS can best be applied to increase communities’ climate resilience or DRM capacity.

The session will partly simulate a typical FFS learning session built around the experiential learning cycle allowing for; field (case) data (information) collection and analysis in sub-groups, group discussion followed by plenary discussion and conclusions.

Other events will also be organized, such as a Shift & Share, focused on Agroecology and a marketplace where FFS related publications and new videos will be showcased!

For more information please contact: [email protected]