The Farmer Field School (FFS) approach has been very successful and witnessed a strong expansion in many areas beyond crop production. Notwithstanding this success, the adoption of FFS in national extension often remains problematic and FFS activities have often been implemented in the margin of national institutions with strong reliance on donor funding. The creation of an enabling environment for institutional support is essential for expanding the effort, improving quality, and strengthening impact and continuity of the FFSs.
Brazilian agriculture is facing another expansion cycle to the Cerrado region, more specific in the Northeast. The first agriculture expansion cycle to the Midwest was in seventies encouraged and developed by Brazilian Government with farmers from southern and southeast Brazil, which were traditional small farmers with some experience, low budget and a remarkable determination. All of these efforts after 20 years resulted in an outstanding development of a part of the country with economy based on agribusiness (soybean, corn, cotton, livestock, poultry, swine, etc.).
Following their first formation in Indonesia over 25 years ago, Farmer Field Schools (FFS) have served as a “proof of concept” of how transformative learning can help governments, donors and development stakeholders achieve development objectives. The FFS approach, which has now been used in more than 90 countries by more than 12 million small farmers (FAO, 2016), not only creates a space in which the practical needs of smallholders to solve production-related issues can be addressed but also fosters personal and community-level transformation through empowerment.
La reciente y continua volatilidad en los precios de los alimentos ha hecho tomar conciencia de la importancia de la Agricultura Urbana y Periurbana (AUP) como un importante recurso de la seguridad alimentaria y nutricional, tanto en términos del suministro de alimentos, como de generación de empleo e ingresos para la población de bajos recursos y por su contribución al equilibrio del desarrollo nacional y a un ambiente urbano más vivible.
El estudio se realizó para conocer la contribución de la escuela de campo a productores en la capacitación y divulgación de la tecnología milpa intercalada en árboles frutales (MIAF). Una tecnología que contribuye en aumentar la producción de maíz y frijol e incorporar la producción intensiva de frutales de calidad comercial, eleva los ingresos, el empleo familiar y la captura de carbono del medio ambiente.
A model is proposed for the management of innovation in marginalized or depressed areas in three different countries, following the methodology of the Field Schools and taking advantage of the resources available in the region, work began with producers of areas with high marginalization and speakers of its original language, based on the fact that producers are subjects and not only beneficiaries, to say that, based on their decisions, they are the ones who cause the changes in their way of acting and producing, in such a way that in addition to the technological offer that allows access t