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The paper discusses the conceptual underpinnings of community-based extension approaches, highlights theoretical and practical challenges inherent in their design, and assesses the evidence available so far on their performance. The paper reviews both quantitative and qualitative studies, focusing on three examples that contain important elements of community-based extension: the [...]

he need to increase agricultural sustainability has induced the government of India to promote the adoption of integrated pest management (IPM). An evaluation of cotton-based conventional and IPM farming systems was conducted in India (2002–2004). The farmers managing the IPM farms had participated in discovery-based ecological training, namely Farmer Field [...]

This manual has been developed for use by facilitators. The reader should not treat it as a step-by-step guide. Rather, it is a useful resource meant to be read before starting the FFS and then used as a reference along the way. It is not subject specific but provides key [...]

The purpose of this book is to provide information on how to transform and strengthen pluralistic agricultural extension and advisory systems in moving toward the broader goal of increasing farm income and improving rural livelihoods. The focus of this book is primarily on the technical knowledge, management skills, and information services that small-scale farm [...]

FAO-ICP on IPM for Vegetables and the Thai Education Foundation hopes that this manual will serve as a useful guide for teachers and agriculture extension workers in integrating environmental issues and concerns in the basic education and farmers’ education programs

Rats are one pest that causes much damage to agricultural production in Viet Nam and other countries. In agriculture, rats damage many different kinds of crops directly on the fields and the produce in store houses. Rats are also vectors of diseases dangerous to people and animals, particularly, bubonic disease [...]

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is an important aspect to undertake in a project or programme and supports the management work to ensure compliance of its strategies, objectives and approach. It is the mechanism for which the process aspects of a programme can be tracked and accounted for, as well as [...]

"Lessons from the field" provides an overview of experiences from 12 projects and programmes across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Each case addresses an aspect of climate change adaptation and mitigation, disaster risk management and food security in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. The documented experiences range [...]

Farmer Field Schools have proven to be a very effective method of incorporating food safety aspects into farming practices. This manual is a reference guide for the inclusion of food safety aspects in Farmer Field School (FFS) programmes. Health (consumer protection) is the main entry point for food safety in [...]

In recent years, IPM extension came to mean FFS (farmer field school). Most studies of FFS pilot projects suggest that IPM helps farmers to lower costs or to increase yields, although the farmers pass on little of their new knowledge to their neighbours, which limits the cost-effectiveness of FFS. Some [...]