What should we expect from farmer field schools? A Sri Lanka case study

Summary

The results of a study in Sri Lanka combined with a review of the literature provide evidence that Farmer Field Schools (FFS) can contribute to increasing farmers’ skills and lowering insecticide use in rice. However, there are questions about their capacity to reach the majority of farmers and little evidence that skills learned are passed to nonparticipants or that an FFS is a likely basis for sustained group activity. The results draw attention to the problems of relying on simple formulas in agricultural programs and point to inadequacies in the assessment of donor projects.

Introduction

Many agricultural development strategies of the past several decades have recognized that uniform technologies (that fueled the success of the Green Revolution) and a linear process of technology transfer (with standard messages delivered to farmers by an extension service) are not the answer for the majority of the world’s resource-poor farmers. Challenges to those simple models have come from several directions, including recognition of farmers’ roles and responsibilities in technology generation, understanding of the variation in farm household assets and strategies, and an appreciation of the need for better farmer organization. The result is a much broader range of methods and techniques directed toward improving smallholder productivity and welfare. However, there is always the danger that innovative strategies may be compromised when they become candidates for widespread replication. Such methods become part of the agricultural development lexicon, and they provide ready molds into which donors can pour the funds that must be dispersed in their next round of projects. Moreover, the reluctance of most donors to sponsor (or to consult) independent evaluations means that these innovations develop a life of their own, unimpeded by an examination of long-term outcomes. This paper examines Farmer Field Schools (FFS), one of the most noteworthy recent contributions to agricultural development practice. It asks what is known about past success and how this knowledge might be relevant to further applications.

FFS have a well-deserved reputation for successfully introducing Asian rice farmers to principles of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). In the 1990s, more than 75 000 FFS were conducted in Asia (Pontius, Dilts, & Bartlett, 2002). As a result of this experience, the term FFS is now widely used and the concept features in a growing range of settings. FAO, which took the lead in supporting FFS for IPM in Asia, is now promoting the concept of Integrated Production and Pest Management (IPPM) through FFS in a number of African countries (Okoth, Khisa, & Julianus, 2003). In the past few years, at least five major donors have funded 1 500 FFS in Kenya alone (Sones, Duveskog, & Minjauw, 2003). There are worldwide examples of the FFS approach being applied to programs in livestock health and production, soil fertility, community forestry, gender, HIV/AIDS prevention, and other topics (e.g., LEISA, 2003). The synthesis of a recent workshop on the subject featured a diagram showing a possible trajectory for FFS, with an arrow originating in rice IPM and traveling outwards through ever broader responsibilities in crop and resource management, eventually arriving at “advocacy,” “democracy,” and “life” (CIP-UPWARD, 2003). The FFS approach supports current interest in participation, empowerment, and decentralization for rural development, and it provides an attractive package for NGOs or donor projects to manage.

Practically the only dissonant note to be heard behind the chorus of support for FFS is in several recent studies funded by the World Bank that examine the economics of FFS and question their financial sustainability (Feder, Feder, Quizon). Based on an examination of data from the Philippines and Indonesia, the studies ask whether the degree of impact among participating and nonparticipating farmers can justify the costs of establishing and managing FFS projects. The fact that significant doubts are being raised (related to two flagship FFS projects) indicates the need for a more thorough examination of the impacts and potential of the FFS approach.

This paper cannot hope to comment on all of the variations of FFS that are currently on offer nor address the exceptional range of aspirations that are held for the concept. Such a broad analysis would be impossible in any case because of the paucity of hard data available regarding the performance and outcomes of most of the elaborations on the original FFS concept. Indeed, there is only a modest amount of data from Asian FFS, despite more than a decade of experience. Our approach is to use the results of a recent study of an FFS program in Sri Lanka, combined with a review of other literature (mostly from Asia), to comment on some of the basic premises and ambitions of the FFS concept. We believe that the data are sufficient to present some fairly robust conclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of the FFS approach. In particular, we focus on the degree to which FFS participants gain new skills, the type of farmer that participates in FFS, the transmission of skills to nonparticipants, the breadth of skills amenable to the FFS approach, and the degree to which FFS contributes to building social capital. Our aim is to contribute to the ability of donors and governments to support the most effective agricultural development strategies and to make decisions on the basis of accumulated experience rather than by simply following current fashion.

The paper is organized in the following manner: Section 2 briefly reviews the concepts of FFS and IPM. This is followed by an introduction to a study of FFS in Sri Lanka and an examination of the participants. The paper then reviews the results of the FFS and compares them to those of other studies. Further evidence from the Sri Lanka study is then used as the starting point to examine information transmission, the range of FFS objectives, and contributions to social capital. The paper concludes with some thoughts on how to take best advantage of the experience gained from FFS.