The graduation ceremony of 30 mastere trainers on farmer field school methodology was held on the  21 of June 2018, in the district of Gondola in Manica Province.. This season  long  training course followed an Agreement signed between the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Seccuity  (MASA) and The Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations, funded by IFAD, under the framework of the project UTF/MOZ/125/MOZ. The government made a request for technical assistance to FAO to conduct a season long  training course during a period of 90 days. The trainees were drawn from all provinces of the country. This was the third!/second!  training of trainers courese held in Mozambique. The project was aiming at strenghening the institutional capacity of national  extension system and improving the impact of the implementation of the  farmer field school methodology approach in Mozambique.

The ceremony was officiated  by Ms.  Sandra Silva, Director of the National Directorate for Agricultural Extension in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MASA) and by Mr.. Pedro Simpson, Acting FAO Representative in Mozambique and was attended by the Permanent Secretary of the Gindola District and the Chief of Provincial Agricultural Extension  Services of  Manica, Tete, Zambézia, Nampula and Sofala.

The training course was conducted by an international expert on farmer field school from  Kenya and by a  national co facilitator and covered highly relevant themes incluing climate change adaptation, pesticides and other harzards management, FAW, agri-buisiness and cross cutting issues so that the trainees were equipped with knowlogde and relevant informations for their daily interventions in the implementation of the farmer field school programs from now on.

Furthermore, the training was discovery based and hands –on in nature  allowing the trainees to work close to already existing farmer field schools in the Gondola district and they had the opportunity themselves to establish their own experiments and trials set on the training centrer. They also benefited from study tour visits to some relevant services related to seed production and muiltiplication, agrarian training and agricultural reserach instititutes operating in Manica province. This approach equiped the participants  with  a variety of learning tools, such as facilitation and communicarion skills  that  made it  possible  for them to reinforce their background.

On the ocasion, an appreciation was made to the 30 trainees and aknowledgment to the trainers Mr. Benjamin Mweri e Ms. Regina Guesela and words of thanks  to  all those  who directly or indirectly had contributed with their expertise, care and time dedicated for the sucess of the course.

The ceremony also included the presentation of songs, dances and theatre by the trainees and the guest were invited to visit the exibition and to participate in the field day showing their trials set during the course, one group photo  wass taken and at the end a lunch for socialization with the guests was offered. 

As follow up actions to be taken up by the 30 trainees, two kits composed of learnig tools were handed over to the 30 trainees for them to set each of two farm field schools in their duty stations. The goivernment has ensured thast technical monitoring and assistance will be provided to them in theat endevour.