FAO Support For Farmer Field Schools in Asia
The first IPM Farmer Field Schools were designed and managed in 1989 by experts working for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Indonesia. This was not, however, the first attempt made by FAO to extend IPM techniques to farmers in South East Asia.
The FAO Intercountry Programme for the Development and Application of Integrated Pest Control in Rice in South and South-East Asia started in 1980, building on the experience of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Bureau of Plant Industry in the Philippines. Over the following two decades the Intercountry Programme (ICP) played a leading role in the promotion of rice IPM in Asia, giving rise to numerous other projects and programmes. By the time of completion in 2002, the ICP had a cumulative budget of $45 million, which had been spent on training activities in 12 countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam).
The ICP was not the only IPM programme supported by FAO during this period. Essential to the development of the FFS was a National IPM Programme in Indonesia, which ran between 1989 and 2000, funded by the United States ($ 25 million grant), World Bank ($ 37 million loan) and the Government ($ 14 million) . FAO provided technical assistance to the National IPM Programme through a team of experts based in Indonesia, with back-stopping from the ICP. National projects were also developed and supported by FAO on a smaller scale in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China and Nepal. Additionally, the ICP launched ‘spin-off’ regional programmes focusing on IPM in cotton and vegetables. In total, during the 15-year period between 1989 and 2004, approximately $100 million in grants were allocated to IPM projects in Asia that used the FFS approach under the guidance of FAO
Read more about this topic: Farmer Field School
Famous quotes containing the words support, farmer, field, schools and/or asia:
“In erotic love, two people who were separate become one. In motherly love, two people who were one become separate. The mother must not only tolerate, she must wish and support the child’s separation.”
—Erich Fromm (20th century)
“Well, farmers never have made money. I don’t believe we can do much about it. But of course we will have to seem to be doing something; do the best we can and without much hope. The life of the farmer has its compensations but it has always been one of hardship.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.”
—Stephen Crane (1871–1900)
“Our good schools today are much better than the best schools of yesterday. When I was your age and a pupil in school, our teachers were our enemies.
Can any thing ... be more painful to a friendly mind, than a necessity of communicating disagreeable intelligence? Indeed it is sometimes difficult to determine, whether the relator or the receiver of evil tidings is most to be pitied.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“I have no doubt that they lived pretty much the same sort of life in the Homeric age, for men have always thought more of eating than of fighting; then, as now, their minds ran chiefly on the “hot bread and sweet cakes;” and the fur and lumber trade is an old story to Asia and Europe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)