Established in 2001, FAO’s Integrated Production and Pest Management (IPPM) programme is a multi-donor initiative that aims to improve farming skills, and raise smallholder farmers’ awareness of alternatives to toxic chemicals using the farmer field school (FFS) approach. Initially focusing on West Africa, the programme has implemented activities in nine countries, namely in Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Tanzania and Zambia, and has trained more than 200 000 farmers. At the beginning, IPPM training focused on the major crops estimated to be using the highest quantities of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, i.e. rice, vegetables and cotton. It then evolved towards a broader system approach incorporating training modules for cereals (maize, sorghum, millet, fonio), and integrating themes such as soil fertility management, seed production, processing, marketing and other practices. The programme builds social capital at multiple scales in order to ensure better delivery and sustainability of programme actions and foster community empowerment.