Over a period of two weeks, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Lebanon, through a project funded by the European Union, trained facilitators on the Farm Business School (FBS) approach.

The facilitators are now able to guide farmers from all over Lebanon in managing their farm operations and making their farming enterprises more profitable.

Coming from different regions, facilitators from the Ministry of Agriculture’s regional agricultural centres and from one University were trained on facilitating farmers to develop business concepts, and helping them to reconceptualise their farms as businesses.

This training activity is within the framework of the project “Enhancing resilient livelihoods and food security of host communities and Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon through the promotion of sustainable agricultural development”, funded by the European Union, and implemented by FAO, WFP and IFAD in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture.

FAO provided to the 20 facilitators (18 facilitators from MoA agricultural centres and 2 facilitators from the University of Balamand) a systematic guidance and exercises on how to successfully run a Farm Business School (FBS). FBS is a curriculum-based and participatory extension approach, which aims to promote market orientation and “farming as a business”, through a shift in focus from production to improving farm management and profitability.