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Farmer Field Schools

Year of publication 2016

Pages 2p.

Author FAO

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet

ISBN No ISBN

Series number AG Dept Factsheet

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) Farmer Field Schools (FFS) is an interactive and participatory learning by doing approach. Participants enhance their understanding of agro-ecosystems, which leads to production systems that are more adapted to local conditions while optimizing the use of available resources. They aim to improve farmers’ livelihoods and recognize their role as innovators and protectors of natural environments. As continuous practice is the key to learning, FFS offer farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolks, foresters and their communities a place where they can meet, discuss and make practical experiments. Typically, a group from the same village, supported by a trained facilitator, meets regularly around a field, herd, fishpond or other setting.

Language English

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    Farmers taking the lead: thirty years of farmer field schools 2019
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    The Farmer Field School (FFS) has been one of the most successful approaches developed and promoted by FAO over the past three decades, empowering farmers to become better decision makers in their own farming systems. Initiated by FAO in 1989, and subsequently adopted by many other organizations and institutions, the FFS programmes constitute one of the most important “results of the collective action of millions of small-scale farmers” that FAO has supported. FFS is an interactive and participatory learning by doing approach that offers farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolks, foresters and their communities a place where they can learn from each other,share experiences, co-create knowledge and try new ways of doing. Participants enhance their understanding of agro-ecosystems, resulting in production systems that are more resilient and optimize the use of available resources. FFS aims to improve farmers’ livelihoods and recognize their role as innovators and guardians of natural environments. FFS has attained plenty of outstanding achievements in all aspects of agriculture and rural development.
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    Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet
    Good and promising practices. Integrating the methodologies of farmer field schools into universities’ curricula: The case of Kenya’s Pwani University 2021
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    Farmer Field School (FFS) was introduced by FAO and partners more than 30 years ago as an alternative to the prevailing top-down extension approach. FFS promotes farm-based experimentation, group organization, and local decision-making through discovery-based learning methods. FFS involves season-long learning of field-based groups of 25 to 30 farmers, who meet regularly to learn through discovery, experimentation, and share the experience. FFS combines local and scientific knowledge and aims at making farmers better decision-makers. Whereas the conventional technology transfer approach focuses primarily on developing and transforming technologies that work for farmers, the FFS approach, on the other hand, empowers farmers to become better decision-makers towards developing or adapting technologies that work and are acceptable to them. Farmers, agro-pastoralists, and fisherfolk worldwide have benefited from the unique ability of FFS programs to address their technological, social, and economic needs. As a result of this success, the demand for FFS programs continues to increase. In some countries like Kenya, the approach is institutionalized in extension systems and NGO programs. Since then, member countries in the Eastern African subregion have expressed their interest in scaling up existing FFS initiatives and integrating the methodology in national extension policies, strategies, and programs. In response to this need, the FAO Subregional Office for Eastern Africa (SFE) developed a project, titled, “Institutionalization of Field Schools (FS) in Extension Curricula of Institutions of Higher Learning in Eastern Africa”, aimed at developing and putting into practice a contextualized and practical approach to mainstream FFS into the agricultural extension.
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    Document
    Episode Five: Farmer Field Schools
    Radio script
    2012
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    Radio script. The Farmer Field School (FFS) is a participatory tool for technology transfer which brings together 20 to 25 men and women farmers who are willing and able to learn. They meet once a week throughout an entire crop cycle (of a winter season) to follow training according to the Farmer Field School methodology. The farmers must observe all the interactions around a plant, identify the potential and constraints and test solutions, given production constraints, having first carried out an exploratory survey. At the end of this process, participants are asked to choose the technical approach that is best suited to alleviating these constraints. In this way, the FFS promotes the learning and uptake of new agricultural production techniques which take account of farmers’ capacities, but also of the possibilities offered by local conditions.
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