Minya, Egypt - The Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), organizes a regional forum on “The future of Farmers' Field Schools” for Sustainable Agrifood systems in the Near East and North Africa in Minya. The Forum will take place over two days, from 29 to 30 May 2023, with the attendance of 60 participants from the Food and Agriculture Organization, government representatives from countries in the NENA region, FFS practitioners and facilitators, where Egyptian FFS farmers will share their own experiences during the forum.

FFS is implemented in over 90 countries with approximately 0.4–1 million farmers graduating per year as a good tool for involving farmers in verifying the health of agricultural food systems and adapting them to better meet their needs. Several reports documented how FFS improves farmers' skills and knowledge to create more sustainable production systems and contribute to the achievement of all SDGs.

The forum is a basis for identifying needs and challenges in FFS implementation, aligning FFS with emerging priorities of food systems, and improving dialogue and coordination at the national and regional levels. Furthermore, the event provides an opportunity to present the results of the FAO regional stocktaking on FFS as a basis for the way forward.

Mr. Abdulkarim Al-Waer, Assistant Director-General of the FAO and Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa stated that FAO has been implementing FFS in the region for more than two decades and numerous FAO programs from multiple sectors adopted the FFS across the region.

He added, while communities confront increasing challenges related to food security, pressure on natural resources, and climate change, there is a need to improve farmer participation in decision-making and to promote context-specific and bottom-up solutions to accelerate the progress of communities toward more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient production, distribution, and consumption patterns. Thus, Farmer Field Schools (FFS) can be a great tool to accomplish just that. Since the 1990s, the FFS has been used as a tool in rural development to strengthen farmers as stakeholders rather than beneficiaries in a sustainable, participatory, and experiential way.

Moreover, Jingyuan Xia, Director of Plant Production and Protection Division at FAO Headquarters, said “there was a real need to bring all the stakeholders together in a regional forum to share cutting-edge experiences and lessons learned in the implementation of the FFS. Additionally, demonstrate how the FFS contributes to rural transformation and helps farmers improve their livelihood.

The forum is proposed as a means to assemble and demonstrate the FFS implemented under wide thematic areas in the NENA region. It provides an opportunity to better understand FFS's role and its future contributions to sustainable agrifood systems by exchanging of experiences and innovations among NENA countries, providing technical guidance to enhance FFS capabilities, identifing challenges and priorities in FFS implementation, brainstorming on the future of FFS, towards adopting sustainable Agri-food systems, strengthening networking among members of the global FFS community, and upgrading and scaling-up FFS strategically in the region and moving forward.

Mr. Nasredin Hag Elamin, FAO Representative in Egypt, highlighted that the venue is in Minya, where several FFS are being implemented within the FAO project “Enhancing Crop and Livestock Production and Productivity through the Adoption of Innovative Climate-Resilient Agricultural Practices and Technologies in Egypt. Adding, there will be a field visit on the first day to meet with local FFS farmers including women, and hear about their experiences. The participants will have the opportunity to witness several success stories achieved by the FAO project in Egypt.

“The forum will take a multisectoral and multidisciplinary approach to the role of FFS in Sustainable Agri-food Systems. It will cover different thematic areas including, plant production & protection, water management, livestock, and sustainable market and value chain through farm business schools, etc. with the aim of identifying key regional needs, challenges and strategies related to FFS in the region as well as making recommendations for future actions” said Mrs. May Hani, Senior Programme Officer, FAORNE.

Thaer Yaseen, FAO Regional Officer for Plant Protection in the Near East and North Africa, (Coordinator of this Forum), explained that the aim of this forum is to share the new methods of knowledge sharing using farmer field schools. In particular, FFS achieved an extraordinary success in plant protection and plant production. FFS started in Asia thirty-three years ago, to find sustainable solutions for plant protection pest and diseases, then introduced to the Near East and North Africa region and developed at several areas to engage farmers in the development and adoption of sustainable solutions.

Worth mentioning that FFS is not viewed as a method of extension, but rather as an adult education program, that increases human, social and natural capital, where FFS is adopted in many areas as sustainable production systems, agro-pastoralism, value chains, and nutrition and life skills.