Farmer Field Schools (FFS) Training of facilitators’ workshop

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in close collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), carried out a training of facilitators on Farmer Field Schools (FFS) over a period of two weeks (between 21 March 2022 and 31 March 2022) in Beirut, Lebanon. The training targeted 28 participants from the MoA (extension services and agricultural centers and its Regional Rural Development departments) and from the Industrial Development and Research Agri Center (IDRAC) of the Chamber of Commerce Industry and Agriculture of Tripoli (CCIAT).

This training was developed within the framework of two FAO projects: “Implementing the 2030 Agenda for water efficiency/productivity and water sustainability in NENA countries”, directly under the Water Scarcity initiative and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), in addition to the “Productive Sectors Development Programme” (PSDP), funded by the Government of Canada.

The objective of the training was to build trainees’ capacities on the basics of the FFS approach and on practical exercises tackling technical topics such as Good Agricultural Practices, Integrated Pest Management and Integrated Water Management at field level taking into consideration the gender-balanced participation.

FFS are based on an innovative, participatory and interactive learning approach. The FFS approach was first developed by FAO in South East Asia in the 1980’s as a way for small-scale rice farmers to investigate, and learn for themselves the skills required for, and the benefits to be obtained from, adopting Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices in their paddy fields.

The aim of the FFS is to build the farmers’ capacity to analyze their production systems and to identify the main constraints/challenges they are facing, to test possible solutions, eventually identifying and adopting the practices most suitable to his farming system. The knowledge acquired during the learning process will be used to build on existing knowledge enabling farmers to adapt their existing technologies so that they become more productive, more profitable, and more responsive to changing conditions, or to adopt new technologies. In addition, the FFS approach offers space for hands-on group learning, enhancing skills for observation and critical analysis as well as improved decision making by local communities.

“The training was an opportunity for the participants to learn how to set up and manage the Farmer Field Schools (FFS) with a gender-balanced participation in each group”, said Etienne Careme, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Representative a.i in Lebanon.

Participants in the training were able to learn about the Farmer Field Schools’ approach, establishment and management.

For trainer Fatima Al Meselmani, the Farmer Field Schools differ from “traditional schools”.  She explained that “we call them schools without walls” because they are based on learning from practices, previous experiences, lessons learned from errors as well as field experiments”.

“One of the most important topics we learned during this training is to distinguish between a ‘teacher’s and a ‘facilitator’s roles”, said Mazen Al Halawani, a trainee.

The training sessions included the following topics:

• FFS definition, methodology, objectives and key concepts;
• Host teams concept and functions;
• Role and essential skills of facilitators;
• Establishment of FFS and farmers’ selection criteria including gender;
• FFS elements curriculum and related steps (including sessions content, field study, Agro-Ecosystem Analysis (AESA), special topics, problems analysis, group dynamic activities and paly roles);

“The additional information I have acquired, will help me develop my skills in order to facilitate farmers’ work, especially through field observations and practical experiments that they will be carrying out”, explained Lamia Ibrahim, trainee.

During the training, a field visit was carried out to Baisariyeh in South of Lebanon to visit a greenhouses’ farm and trainees were split into groups and requested to apply the AESA approach and to apply what has been trained during the previous sessions.

At the end of the FFS training, a graduation ceremony was organized in the presence of FAO Representative a.i. in Lebanon, donors’ representatives, PSDP programme coordinator in the UN Resident Coordinator Office, the MoA projects’ focal points and CCIAT representative.