Background information

To ensure that climate information and climate resilient technologies, practices and innovations are applied at farm level, CRAFT establishes farmer field schools to train farmers, setting up experimentation plots and observation protocols for farmers to learn by doing. The initiative targets four categories of beneficiaries, namely 1) Farmers/ Farmer Cooperatives/Farmer organizations; 2) Small-&-Medium-Sized Agribusiness Entrepreneurs (buyers, processors, input suppliers, credit service providers, etc.); 3) Service providers providing services to the Agribusiness Entrepreneurs to enable adoption of technologies and practices and trigger increased investments throughout the value chains; 4) Government officials / policy makers.

The intervention, the tool(s), and method(s)

CCAFS and SNV in 2019 mainstreamed climate change/climate variability intervention into Farmer Field School (FFS) methodology for Training for Trainers (ToT) in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The purpose was to integrate climate-resilience (CR) lens into the FFS methodology for Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA). FFS was introduced in East Africa in 1996 but climate change and climate variability aspects had not been mainstreamed into the methodology in East Africa. Using the FFS approach with an additional climate change and climate variability module, the training focused on integrating climate information in planning for selected value chains, i.e. climate resilient farmer field school (CR-FFS). The new CR-FFS process has been developed into a training guidebook to mainstream the climate variability module in FFS training. The Guidebook outcome reflects CCAFS contribution to influencing policy. The methodology introduces facilitators to a participatory “hands-on” training, community mobilization, learner organization, experiential planning, problem identification, solution seeking, monitoring and evaluation (including weather monitoring), project costing. Both the process and technical subject matter are covered simultaneously, blended with special topics of interest to the participants. The Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools used include seasonal calendar, participatory ranking, organizational mapping and pest profiling, problem/solution options assessment, and gender analysis, among others.

Beneficiary groups

The initiative targets four categories of beneficiaries, namely 1) Farmers/ Farmer Cooperatives/Farmer organizations; 2) Small-&-Medium-Sized Agribusiness Entrepreneurs (buyers, processors, input suppliers, credit service providers, etc.); 3) Service providers providing services to the Agribusiness Entrepreneurs to enable adoption of technologies and practices and trigger increased investments throughout the value chains; 4) Government officials / policy makers.

Evidence-based process

The methodology has a module on monitoring and evaluation, which guides participants to plan and implement simple assessments of achievement and impact. A provision has been made in the module for crop-water-weather calendar monitoring and recording, to assist in agro meteorological analysis (AGROMETA) besides Agroecosystem Analysis (AESA). Downscaled seasonal weather forecast information is provided to the FFS by the project modelling team and the local agro meteorologist, before the FFS team begins local seasonal monitoring for comparison. AGROMETA and AESA monitoring period is decided by the group, depending on the type and nature of the focal crop or focal animal. Both indigenous weather information (using agreed indicators) and conventional/scientific weather information is observed, recorded, analysed, and reported. Data collection is done at predefined intervals using AESA/AGROMETA data sheet. Discussion is conducted to blend both indigenous and conventional weather information results for better, more robust decision making and appropriate action. The module also includes semi-structured quiz and/or mood meters, and a “most significant change” story method of capturing change, done at regular intervals. Storytelling is used as a way of understanding, communicating, and influencing others, but the narrative storylines can also be used as a qualitative monitoring tool to track and analyse change as well as knowledge products for communication purposes. The module also includes a pre-test and post-test that members take at the beginning and the end of the process, to record how much the group knows and how much the group has learned from the process, and how they have gained from the learning. The facilitator and participants reflect on evidence of key changes participants are observing, what shows changes are occurring, how they are occurring, what is working or not working.

Gender, Youth and Social Inclusion

CRAFT Project policy is inclusivity. Gender/Youth Inclusion Analysis informs the efforts on affirmative action for women and youth inclusion. Gender concerns are incorporated in CR-FFS training. Conscious efforts are made for gender and youth inclusion. Specific gender and youth related criteria are included in the various tools, assessments and strategies developed for project roll out to ensure they play a vital role in the choice the project team makes when selecting value chains and identifying business cases. All data are disaggregated by gender and age to capture the social categories of interest, to capture individuals and groups targeted through project efforts and business cases for monitoring and evaluation purposes. Specific selection criteria for start-up agribusinesses, women-led/managed businesses and young entrepreneurs are considered, in addition to the main essential climate smart criteria geared to gender and youth inclusiveness, related outreach strategies, and systemic change and learning resulting from this. These include potential for income generation by women (as employees or self-employed); women’s control over equipment, assets and sales income; potential for income generation by youth; potential for employment/ new job creation for the youth and women; potential to mitigate the vulnerability of the value chain/s to impacts of climate change.

Adoption of the practice in public policies

The Field School experiences (in its various forms) have not been formally integrated into the general extension systems of the East African countries but the policy and strategic documents on general extension mention field school methodology as one of the known extension approaches. This is an area that requires further policy engagement with the governments. Kenya has noted it as an extension method in its national agricultural sector extension policy of 2012 but does not proceed to adopt it, in that document, as a method to promote in the policy. Likewise, Uganda mentions it in its National Agricultural Extension Policy (NAEP, 2016) and the extension guidelines and standards of 2016 as one of the extension methods but does not expressly endorse it for promotion in the extension system. A review of relevant literature for Tanzania shows that farmer field school methodology is one the extension methods used in Tanzania but there is no “one-endorsed” approach by the government of Tanzania, although the national agriculture policy of Tanzania (of 2013) states that “Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (JFFLS) and Young Farmers’ Associations (YFAs) shall be promoted”.

Main lessons from the CR-FFS intervention

1. From the first-round experience, climate-resilient FFS is proving to be a versatile and valuable tool/methodology where new topics can be incorporated in the curriculum and adjustments made to meet the circumstances of each particular setting or target group. This creates room for considering whole farm/system approach to experiential learning in the approach
2. Analysis of the pre-and-post-training assessment indicates that the training enriched participants knowledge of a blended FFS with climate information and climate-smart agriculture.
3. The following elements of the course were mentioned as the most useful idea captured during the training: Climate-Smart Agriculture, Climate Change and Weather Information, knowledge of Farmer Field School, Agronomic practices including integrated pest and disease control, monitoring and evaluation of CR-FFS, presentation methods, Agro-ecosystem analysis, organizing farming calendar
4. Based on needs expressed by participants there is a demand for more attention to capacity building in the fields of financial management, marketing, standards and quality, and use of information and communication tools. Much of the current extension practice is targeted at improving technical skills only, and not addressing management skills.
5. However, to be sustainable, efforts will be required to maintain technical quality and institutional support to achieve the ecological resilience, agricultural productivity and income objectives.

Lessons for scaling CR-FFS

The experience of the training gave some lessons and consequently areas that may need improvement in the subsequent training activities. Key amongst these are:

1. Agrometeorological instruments for weather and water-level monitoring: Simple gadgets and methods for crop-weather-calendar and crop-water-balance observation may need to be provided for the training. There is a strong need to bring both agronomists and agro-meteorologists to collaborate from start, instead of one of them being the main agent and merely inviting the other, as happens in the traditional farmer field schools and climate field schools
2. Concentration on one crop or animal species at a time is not suitable for diversified farming or pastoral systems. May need to consider whole farm/whole system approach
3. May need to explore ways to improve on financial sustainability of the methodology – e.g., making farmer/pastoral trainers be the main facilitators to lower the cost
4. On average the participation of women was less than 50%. There may be a need to campaign for stronger participation of women and youth
5. The methodology has not yet been institutionalized in formal extension systems. Policy makers will need to be engaged to get their buy-in for formal adoption of the methodology in public agricultural system. This may be achieved by blending and complementing FFS with other modes of extension, dissemination, and communication to achieve greater impact

The capacity building initiatives for Climate-Resilient FFS across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have led to the production of Climate Resilient Farmer Field Schools Handbook.