Building Agricultural Community Resilience: A Farmer Field School of Excellence Facilitators Training Manual

Scaling technologies and improved practices can potentially improve agricultural production and efficiency in the smallholder farming sector. Numerous methods exist for scaling innovations and technologies, but participatory approaches stand out and have contributed to the transformation of farming systems. The farmer field school approach was used by the RESADE project i.e., “Improving agricultural REsilience to SAlinity through DEvelopment and promotion of pro-poor technologies and management strategies in selected countries of sub-Saharan Africa”, to disseminate proven technologies to farming communities in six Sub-Saharan African countries.

The key to the successful establishment and conduct of the numerous farmer field school sessions on the RESADE project can be attributed to the active involvement of the locally recruited facilitators. The training of local facilitators at the onset of the dissemination efforts significantly contributed to a large proportion of the >8000 farmers reached by the project. The selection of facilitators took into consideration the skills domain and experience in working with farmers. The ability to apply adult learning approaches was also an important attribute sought during the selection process. Both facilitators and farmers who were engaged in the RESADE project in all six countries also contributed to shaping the development of this training manual.

The manual was designed for researchers who work with large groups of farmers in the generation, testing, and scaling of technologies and innovations that have a potential impact on the livelihoods of smallholder producers. The manual also addresses the needs of students, extension personnel, development practitioners, and those who consider the development of skills and sharing knowledge through adult literacy approaches. The manual acts as a guide in many aspects of participatory engagement for rural communities and has been developed for those who need improved technologies and innovation to move a step up in their production practices and knowledge acquisition.

The manual has been developed in a simple but robust manner to ensure that the experience of contacting the training of facilitators is an enriching exercise for the recipients as well as the trainers. The authors consider the guide as an important tool for empowering the farmer field school facilitators regardless of their specialty or background studies.