Participatory Training and Extension 
in Farmers’ Water Management

What is Participatory Training and Extension in Farmers’ Water Management (PT&E-FWM)?

Through a participatory approach in extension, technical staff and other stakeholders put farmers in charge of water management at field and scheme level, promote the adoption of appropriate technologies and establish the necessary local capacity to put farmers in charge of water development and management.

Participatory Training and Extension (PT&E) has proved to be an effective tool for this and to establish the appropriate support structure to assist and advise farmers in irrigation development and management. PT&E is in particular useful for small holder irrigation and in the case of irrigation management transfer programmes.

Farmers’ Water Management (FWM) refers to all water control techniques, technologies and related activities under the direct control and responsibility of farmers. FWM is carried out on an individual basis, by each farmer on his/her own field and farm as well as by a group of farmers, who jointly manage a hydraulic unit and share water from the same source.

AGLW has developed and put together a package of training material for the development and implementation of a Participatory Training & Extension Programme in Farmers’ Water Management. The two main documents are The Guidelines (265 KB) and Farmers’Training Manual for PT&E-FWM. Besides this, the training package contains a collection of various documents and audiovisual materials to help in the development and implementation of training programmes for farmers and field staff in order to facilitate the introduction of appropriate water control technologies and better water management techniques.

All the training material can be downloaded (as .pdf) from this website, but is also available on a CD-ROM that can be ordered by sending an e-mail to:
farmer-water-training@fao.org.