Rome, 25 April 2023 –The FAO Plant Production and Protection divisionheld a FAO internal consultation with over 70 participants from FAO divisions and regional and sub-regional offices. The Director of the FAO Plant Production and Protection Division Jingyuan Xia opened the meeting highlighting the importance of farmer field schools over the past thirty years. He underlined the importance of having an inclusive, participatory and multistakeholder approach to redesign and scale up farmer field schools through several consultations, both internally, externally and with dedicated initiatives. 

FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdolparticipatedto the meeting and shared her experience on the importance that farmer field school play to provide effective tools for sustainable development at the local level. Farmer field schoolssupport communities improve, grow and acquire knowledge and skills, that arelocally adapted to transform rural livelihoods. 

Global Farmer Field School Platform CoordinatorAnne-Sophie Poisotrecalled that farmer field schools have trained over 20 million farmers since 1989.Farmer field schools are farmer-centred, empower producers, stimulate innovations by encouraging producers to test solutions that are then adapted locally. This approach investsin human capacity, allowing farmers to develop and explore other roles in their communities: learners, facilitators, researchers, planners, organizers, and more. Farmer field schools have social inclusion and gender at their core, and scaledthrough south-southand triangular collaborations and exchanges. 

The discussions revolved around three key areas for farmer field schools. The first one, presented by Vincent Martin, Director of the Office of Innovation (OIN) of FAO, focused on how to includeinnovative approaches to farmer field schools. Ana Posas Guevara, Agricultural Officer for the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, FAO, then introduced the second area on capacity development. Finally, the third thematic discussion focused on multistakeholder engagement, institutionalization and coordination and was introduced by James Okoth, Senior Programme Officer of FAO Pakistan.