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Data from Human Development Report 2011, UNEP
Expenditure on public health (% of GDP)
Hum
an D
evel
opm
ent I
ndex
(HD
I)
Community-Based Adaptive Management: Farmer Field Schools (FFS) in West Africa
©FAO/William Settle
©FAO/William Settle
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• Approach : 25 years 90+ countries (30 in SSA)
• Small groups, Season-long
• No-risk experimentation • Observations, Debate and
Decisions • Higher rates of adoption
of locally adapted practices
• Platform for future entry and testing by farmers of new ideas
Community-based Education Farmers Field Schools
• Not a replacement for extension systems
• Platform for exchange among existing ‘mosaic’ of actors
©FAO/Olivier Asselin
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• Fundamental challenge is the heterogeneity and extent of agricultural systems
• Adaptation must take place at multiple scales
• FFS is Process-based Focus on the scales at which
management takes place Stakeholder Involvement “Experimentalist” philosophy
• FFS programme must “reinvent” itself in each new context
FFS : an Adaptive Process
©FAO/William Settle
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• 400 Ha rice 793 farmers (from 2 FFS) • Yields: 2.1 T/ha grew to 5.6 T/ha in two seasons • 66% reduction in chem fertilizer use • Reincorporation of crop residues • 80% reduction in seed use • Profits to farmers equivalent to annual project cost
Malanville, Benin FFS Rice
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4,324 households :
1,461 FFS trained (34%)
47,000 liters HHP not sprayed
Percent households trained
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
% p
estic
ides
pur
chas
ed
0 20 10 30 40 50 60
Mali Cotton : Pesticide Reductions
Settle, et al 2014 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B
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• Linking better to local markets
• Integrating “big data” (FAO/ESA)
• Community resilience assessments (SHARP)
• Community Listeners’ Clubs (Dimitra)
• Agro-forestry
• Monitoring pesticides and impacts (OSU)
• Harvesting Lessons-learned
• “South-south” collaborations
• Policies (all scales)
• Agro-pastoral FS
• Climate Change Adaptation
Current Areas of Innovation/collaboration
©FAO/Letha Tawney
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Thanks to: Govt. of the Netherlands, EU, GEF, UNEP Governments and peoples of West Africa