Progress results on the Global Farmer Field School Survey  

The Global Farmer Field School Survey is the result of a collaboration between the FFS team in FAO Headquarters and Wageningen University. The results will provide a global review of FFS implementations, lessons learnt and impact evaluations.

The global survey on FFS implementation yielded contemporary data from 57 FFS projects. The results evidenced that the FFS are widely executed across the globe on a rather large scale as an instrument in rural development, with a wide variety of applications.

Key facts of the recent findings:

• The FFS has greatly diversified in Africa and Asia, with projects tackling a range of crops and livestock.
• Results highlighted the importance of dedicating time and effort to the involvement of farmers and other stakeholders in the design of a project. Incorporating diverse components into a project may encourage the learning process about locally appropriate practices and technologies, but puts additional demands on the capabilities for curriculum development, training and field support.
• The training of facilitators showed large variations among projects, raising some concerns about the quality of the FFS, but reportedly, ample support was given by projects for mentoring visits, refresher training or follow-up activities. There are indications that FFS projects are increasingly relying on farmers as facilitators, instead of the staff of governments or NGOs, which can be a positive development but warrants continued support to guard quality of the intervention.
• Structures for Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) were in place in most projects, and impact assessment was carried out in part of the projects, but challenges were encountered in the collection, analysis and utilization of data, suggesting the need for technical back-up.
• Support from policy and research was variable, being strong in some projects but weak in others. There remains an apparent need for advocacy for the FFS to policy makers, and for actively engaging researchers in the support and evaluation of the FFS.

Review of FFS outcomes and impacts

Apart from an ongoing review of published and unpublished sources of FFS outcomes and impacts, two countries have been selected for more detailed case studies: Malawi and Indonesia.

In Malawi, FFS projects on production and marketing, food security and diversification and on climate change resilience were visited during a mission. The Malawian experience will provide an interesting case on how the FFS started off with a narrow scope, but became increasingly demand-driven, resulting in FFSs with an array of locally-relevant components. Consequently, the FFS are beginning to serve as a platform for integration of various programmes and services of the public and private sectors.

Stay alert for the final publication of the survey.