Field Guide of Discovery-based Exercises for - Aseanipm ...

Section 2 • General Topics for Farmer Field Schools
The usual way to do this exercise in past FFSs was to start by asking farmers what records they
think would be useful to keep. Although this is very participatory, it is not discovery-based because
an exercise starts by assuming that record keeping is useful.
In this exercise we will try to start with a question what profit farmers made last year. This will
allow farmers to share what records they usually keep. The sharing discussion allows farmers to
decide whether they might find it useful to keep more records than they currently do. Thus, this
activity was designed to address such particular concern.
How long will this exercise take?
• One to two hours of an FFS meeting
learning objectives
• To build awareness among farmers on value of keeping records of production costs and market
prices, especially when they are to be used as basis for calculating profit or loss; and
• To agree on a list of inputs and costs to record in learning field for use in assessing and comparing
profits from treatments of organic vegetable production studies.
materials
• Examples of records kept by farmer-participants (Note: Ask farmers to bring in any examples
of records that they keep for their own organic vegetable fields)
• Manila paper
• Pens and masking or Scotch tapes
methodology
• Guided discussion and sharing of experiences
steps
1. Arrange participants in a circle for sharing.
2. Start a discussion that explores how farmers estimate how much profit they make in their
organic vegetable farming. Here are some suggested questions:
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