Farmer Field Schools

Needs Address

• Building of formal and informal institutions and social networks
• Information for decision making
• Heightened awareness of and access to climate change information

Adaptation effects

• Builds farmer capacity to respond to climatic impacts
• Trains farmers in participatory methods and technical aspects of integrated pest management and other responses
• Farmer networking and capacity for collective actions can gain FFS members access to governance and policy processes and achieve human empowerment

Overview and Features

The Farmer Field School (FFS) is an early innovative model for community based farmer education based on non-formal, adult educational or “discovery learning” methods, developed some 20 years ago in response to the weaknesses of more “top-down” extension models of the time.

Figure: Principle Organising Elements of Farmer Field Schools (Source: FAO)

Cost

• Costs for running FFSs
• Administrative costs
• Trainer costs
• Transportation costs for networking and communicating between villages

Energy source

Human resources

Ease of maintenance

• Requires ongoing encouragement and maintenance of connections and inclusion
• Institutionalisation after success in India reflects positive maintenance progress
• Sustainability questioned by farmers

Technology performance

• Widespread international expansion since establishment in SE Asia
• In India a number of state governments, realizing the effectiveness of FFSs and economic and social benefits to resource poor farmers, have taken steps to institutionalise the IPM-FFS model for cotton and other crops in their mainstream extension.
• A recent development in SE Asia has been the adaptation of the FFS approach for recovering biodiversity knowledge
• Diversification of the FFS approach at the institutional level has occurred with the livestock and seed FFS programmes with DANIDA support in Vietnam
• Impact related to pesticide reduction, increases in productivity, knowledge gain among farmers and empowerment
• Limited or no effect on economic performance, the environment and health and farmer-to-farmer dissemination of information and technologies

Considerations

• Care for the longer term prospects in the implementation phase (e.g. in the processes and criteria used for participant selection and site selection) allow development to larger and more formal collaborations
• Follow up support should be available for farmer facilitators and FFS alumni and farmer-driven network development 

Co-benefit, suitability for developing countries

• Economic and social benefits to resource poor farmers
• Social bonding and trust building enabling development to networks, federations and associations
• Allows local development and adaptation of agricultural practices
• Provides hands on comprehensive education e.g. for improving farmer expertise in the management of site-specific agro-ecosystems
• Relies on farmers own discovery and reflection rather than trained external advisors
• Play an important role in serving as a platform for human capacity building and empowerment, which in turn can ensure the success of services provided for the community
• Can function well even with facilitators of relatively low technical skills
• Instances in which “technology transfer” is useful should employ more appropriate non-FFS methods, such as radio and community meetings.
• Often FFS is specified as costly, particularly under the current situation of structural adjustment and declining agricultural (national) budgets
• FFS are vulnerable to loss of quality (and thus impact) particularly in terms of poor or inappropriate curriculum design and inadequate attention to the quality of the learning process
• Vulnerable people may find it difficult to take part

Information Resources

Braun, A. and Duveskog, D. 2008. The Farmer Field School Approach – History, Global Assessment and Success Stories. Background Paper for the IFAD Rural Poverty Report 2011. Available from: http://www.ifad.org/rpr2011/background/1.pdf [14 November 2014]