Farmers Field School: An Approach to Demonstrate
Better Practices for Crop Security

Details of farmers field schools

Number of villages: 5

Number of farmers: 160

Main crops: Sorghum, Pearl Millet

Number of farmers field schools: 5

Development Alternatives is working with Marico to rejuvenate the tank-based ecosystem as an adaptation strategy in changing climatic conditions in Bundelkhand region. Agriculture and other productive land use compete with environmental and biodiversity goals. Therefore, we needed to reconcile agriculture to our objective in the area. It is believed that training and information services for small farmers in sustainable land use and adaptation to local soil and weather conditions can enable them to adapt to climate change and become better able to deal with its impacts, while at the same time increasing their farm productivity and by extension impacting the conservation of water.

What is a ‘Farmer Field School’?

In the agriculture sector, it is assumed that the farmer knew everything but factually it is incorrect. The farmer knew traditional farming practices very well but the next generation farmers are not fully aware of them. Therefore, it is important to enhance their skills and knowledge about both traditional and new farming methods, technologies, practices and keep a balance between the two to secure crop productivity and production.

The Farmer Field School (FFS) approach was incorporated into the project to introduce cropping practice for food security. As per the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, FFS is an innovative, participatory and interactive learning approach that emphasises problem-solving and discovery-based learning. It aims to build farmers’ capacity to analyse their production systems, identify problems, test possible solutions, and eventually encourage the participants to adopt the practices most suitable to their farming systems.

After the detailed survey of the project villages, the team decided to operate five Farmer Field Schools (FFS) to reach out to as many farmers as possible and identified the farmers who would take up the crop cultivation for demonstration. These five schools are currently focusing on the Kharif crops, mainly millet, however some would continue to operate in the Rabi season as well.

A total of six sessions were conducted per FFS over a period of four months with each session dedicated to a particular theme in crop management. Figure 2 shows the farmer participation and the status of demonstration plots against the area under cultivation and the gender of the farmer. Drought-resistant crops like millet and sorghum were cultivated by the interested small and medium holder farmers as a mitigation response to low rainfall – 300 mm in the current year as compared to 800 mm a year normally. While female farmers’ uptake of cultivation of sorghum was relatively lower than that of the male farmers, uptake of pearl millet saw equal participation by both the genders.

The programme was initiated in the presence of officials from the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of Madhya Pradesh. The objective of the field day was to demonstrate the crops to other farmers who also take up the cultivation of these traditional crops and to leverage resources and support from the local governing bodies.

To begin with, the DA field team gave an overview of the tank rejuvenation project supported by Marico India while farmers shared their experience of the FFS. Farmers accredited the quality of cultivation to the sowing and crop management lessons learnt in the FFS. Farmers were vocal about how the rain deficit in the current year had affected other cash crops including urad, but millet and sorghum cultivated by them were showing good results. While other crops could not even bud, their crops managed to fair better in terms of the number of tillers and the height of the plant.

These characteristics are indicative of good yield and thereby promising an income enhancement for these farmers. Crops are harvested and ready for thrashing and yield would be calculated to ascertain growth markers.

Following this, the expert from the Department of Agriculture discussed the current agricultural practices, its aligned issues and techniques for better crop management including pest management and organic farming. ■