Participatory Evaluation of our 2008 - Action Against Hunger

and decision making (discussed further below), every FFS group selects both a study enterprise
and a commercial enterprise. The study enterprise concentrates on one or more specific
production problems and through farmer experimentation identifies contextually appropriate means
of solution or mitigation. The commercial enterprise is dedicated to a group profit making venture
but nonetheless also includes strong elements of promoting improved production practices. Groups
can select the enterprises of their choice, based on a facilitated and analytical decision making
process that encourages members to isolate critical production issues for improvement. With the
study and commercial enterprises, farmers make ongoing field observations and relate these to
their past experience in order to make decisions about how to improve production and profitability
in the future. Participants should transplant what is learned through the group approach to their
individual households and, ideally, transmit their experience and practice more widely in the
surrounding community.
Beyond the experimentation and learning opportunities afforded by the programme, each FFS
group also receives a cash grant of Ugx 800,000 (approximately $400) to establish its bank
account with capital to purchase production inputs required for their two enterprises. The group
experience therefore extends beyond production alone to encompass a range of complementary
support in practices for both improved production and asset management alike.
ACF, in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), 2 facilitated formation of
twelve farmer field school groups in 3 parishes of Lira (Opejal) and Oyam (Aceno, Oyoro) districts
of the Lango sub-region. The programme ran from early January to the end of July 2008, and
coincided with two larger 12-month FSL programmes in the North. ACF’s FFS approach sought to
facilitate experiential learning for empowered decision making on improved production, along the
following set of core principles:
Figure 2. Summary of farmer field school core principles 3
Institutional
Community
• FFS shorten the times it takes to get research from • Empower farmers with knowledge and skills in farming
station to adoption in farmer fields by involving farmers • Sharpen farmer ability in making logical decisions on
in their own experimentation
what works best for them, based on their own
• Enhance the capacity of extension workers to serve as observations of experimental and validation plots
technically skilled and group sensitive facilitators of • Promote group initiatives that are able to solve own
farmer’s experiential learning.
community problems and facilitate the work of other
• Increase the competency of extension services to
development players by providing a demand driven
provide farmer education that responds more effectively system
to local resources and conditions
• Establish high level of networking by groups to handle
• Contribute information on the replicability and
emerging follow up with community activities [marketing,
effectiveness of FFSs as an alternative and sustainable resource mobilization processing, contract farming, etc]
mechanism for extension service delivery
The twelve groups contained a total of 320 members. All groups concentrated on agricultural
production for both their commercial and study enterprises (although one initially wanted to
establish a piggery for their commercial enterprise before realising that the programme grant
component would be insufficient). Interestingly, not only did all twelve groups ultimately pursue
crop production, but most concentrated on crops preferred for sale (groundnut and soy) more than
consumption (pigeon pea):
2 FAO letter of agreement 062/07; ACF reference D6C.
3 FAO Uganda (2007) Trainer’s Guide for Farmer Field School Facilitators (draft).
Action Against Hunger Uganda - 14 - Farmer Field School Evaluation