The Farmer Field School (FFS) is a group-based learning process that has been used by a number of governments, NGOs and international agencies to promote Integrated Pest Management (IPM). The first FFS were designed and managed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Indonesia in 1989 since then more than two million farmers across Asia have participated in this type of learning.
The Farmer Field School brings together concepts and methods from agroecology, experiential education and community development. As a result, hundreds of thousands of rice farmers in countries such as China, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam have been able to reduce the use of pesticides and improve the sustainability of crop yields. The FFS has produced other developmental benefits that are broadly described as ‘empowerment’: FFS alumni in a number of countries are involved in a wide-range of self-directed activities including research, training, marketing and advocacy.
Read more about Farmer Field School: Origins of The Farmer Field School, Description of A Typical Farmer Field School, FAO Support For Farmer Field Schools in Asia, Costs and Benefits of The Farmer Field School
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“Many young girls are ... becoming trained nurses, whose gentle ministrations in the sick-room, skilled touch, patient watchfulness and unwearied vigils, are as great factors in the care of the sick, as are the professional physicians.”
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)
“And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.”
—Eugene Field (1850–1895)
“Sure, you can love your child when he or she has just brought home a report card with straight “A’s.” It’s a lot harder, though, to show the same love when teachers call you from school to tell you that your child hasn’t handed in any homework since the beginning of the term.”
—The Lions Clubs International and the Quest Nation. The Surprising Years, II, ch.3 (1985)