A Series of Lectures ByMr Allah Dad Khan Provincial Director IPM KPK MINFAL Pakistan

3. Farmer Field Schools
(Impact of FFS)
A Series of Lectures
By
Mr. Allah Dad Khan Provincial
Director IPM KPK MINFAL
Pakistan

4. Defining impact
 What is seen as impact of IPM depends on a project’s objective. What
do IPM initiatives attempt to achieve? Is the purpose to reduce
insecticide use, to enhance sustainable pest management, or to
enhance adaptive crop management? Is it to increase yields, to
increase profits, or to improve livelihoods?
 Although initially, pest resurgence was the problem that triggered the
emergence of the IPM Farmer Field School, the objective has been to
enable farmers to become better managers of their fields. Crop health –
not pest control – was the central theme in most training. Later still, an
objective was added to help farmers become better trainers, organizers
and experimenters within their own locally developed programs.
 The training often went further than increasing farmers’ technical
capabilities and also helped enhance their educational, social and
political capabilities.
 This raises the question of what should be considered impact: the
immediate impacts such as farmer knowledge, decision capabilities,
pesticide use or yield, or the indirect developmental impacts such as
reduced poisoning, improved biodiversity, community agenda setting or
policy change

5. Table -Examples of immediate and developmental impacts of
the IPM Farmer Field School, arranged according to the
technical, social and political domain.Domain Immediate impact Developmental impact
Technical Knowledge about ecology More sustainable production
Experimentation skills Improved livelihoods
Improved crop management Ability to deal with risks,
opportunities
Pesticide reduction Innovation
Yield increase More cost-effective production
Profit increase Reduced water contamination
Risk reduction Reduced frequency of farmer
poisoning
Reduced public health risks
Improved biodiversity
Improved marketability of produce
Poverty reduction

6. Table Examples of immediate and developmental impacts of
the IPM Farmer Field School, arranged according to the
technical, social and political domain.
Domain Immediate impact Developmental impact
Social Group building Collaboration between farmers
Communication skills Farmer associations
Problem solving skills Community agenda setting
Farmer study groups
Formation of networks
Farmer-to-farmer extension
Area-wide action
Political Farmer-extension linkage Stronger access to service providers
Negotiating skills Improved leverage position
Educational skills Awareness campaigns
Protests
Policy change

7. PROGRAMME IMPACTS ENVIRONMENTAL/HEALTH
IMPACTS
1. Focus on IPPM has led to farmers
2. appreciating the importance of
3. Agroecosystem & hence having the attitude
4. to conserve the environment
5. FFS has also provided a study forum for
6. topics such as HIV/AIDS awareness, malaria
7. control, immunization, nutrition, clean
8. drinking water, pesticide exposure etc

8. PROGRAMME IMPACTS PROGRAMME
REPLICABILITY AND
SCALING UP IMPACTS
 Farmers taking the initiative to start up FFS
 themselves: about 30 self funded FFS have
 emerged
 A number of other donors and NGOs have
 adopted the approach as a basis for the
 implementation of their projects: UNDP,
 USAID,EU, DFID, Rockfeller Foundation,
 ILRI, KARI, a wide range of NGOs and local
 institutions and the Ministry of agriculture

9. LESSONS LEARNED
A. The FFS is an effective and comparatively cheap
B. tool to encourage communities to validate and
C. adapt improved technologies to local conditions,
D. improve rural food security and income generation,
and empower farmers to find solutions to their
problems
E. FFS approach can be successfully used and
adapted to improve skills and knowledge of farmers
for a wide range of crops/livestock/natural resource
management enterprises.

10. Financing
 Farmer groups managing directly the funds of the
 FFS, in particular the payment for the provision of
extension services, substantially improved the
performance of extension delivery and
accountability of extension providers
 The strategy used by the programme to promote
farmer led FFS has allowed a large number of
farmers to benefit. Investing in skill development
& networking of farmer facilitators allows
extension workers to reach many more farmers
compared to most other extension approaches.

11. Empowerment
FFS empowered communities and raised their
profile at district level, as has been demonstrated
by the creation of strong and cohesive FFS
networks. This FFS networks emerged without
external support. They have big potential in acting
as a platform for community based extension
activities, and for addressing marketing and
policy issues

12. Experience in FFS
Experiences suggest that approach is highly
appreciated by both sexes but females seem to
value the approach more due to the practical,
field-based learning focus and the social value of
FFS groups

13. Impact of FFS in Sind
 Participant have 38 percent more cotton yield compared to non
FFS farmers. The major contribution to cotton’s yield was of input
labor man days as compared to other cotton crop inputs, which
indicates that cotton crop is more
 labor intensive. However, the irrational use of chewing and
sucking pesticides has a negative impact on cotton’s yield.
 The mean efficiency of all the farmers were estimated as 78
percent, which shows that 22 percent improvement is still
possible in technical efficiency of cotton growers. The FFS
farmers were found more technically efficient as compared to
non-
 FFS farmers. The inefficiency variables such as age and
education shows that these two factors have a negative impact
on technical inefficiency however, contact of farmers with
agriculture extension department is increasing inefficiency, which
shows that there are weak linkages between Agriculture
extension department and farming community of the study area.

14. Impact of FFS in Sind
 The high yield of FFS farmers urged the need that
FFS approach should be the part of non-development
programme in all the four provinces of Pakistan.
 The FFS approach should be executed under the
umbrella of a single institution which will provide a
paved way for proper implementation of this
approach.
 The focus of FFS approach on rational use of crop
inputs and environmental benign practices can also
help to meet World Trade Organization (WTO)
obligations. These obligations under sanitary and
phytosanitary (SPS) measures of WTO emphasis on
reasonable use of pesticide spray on crops.