The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) introduced the Farmer Field School (FFS) approach in 1989 to educate farmers on improved agricultural practices. The FFS approach has been used widely where a season-long school is established for farmers to engage in group learning and training activities. As the FFS approach was scaled up globally, the challenge of quality delivery and effective monitoring and evaluation of FFS became necessary, especially in remote areas.

Where we were

In traditional practice, the FFS facilitators would travel to rural settings and deliver a training session to the men and women farmers based in the area. The facilitators would keep a meta-data record of session activities manually and submit reports capturing the daily performance of participants. However, in many cases, it became nearly impossible to monitor and evaluate if the sessions were being conducted as per the agreed curriculum. The field facilitators were facing issues of ineffective data collection and management where they were handling paper-based reports, attendance and learning records, capturing pictures and documenting the proceedings of the FFS sessions.  This required the use of paper-based record books and cameras to capture session information which was then transferred to a report on computers, taking considerable off-field time with challenges of mismatched session details and pictorial records. This paper-based reporting mechanism often led to delayed data collection and faulty consolidation of facts on farmers’ learning.