A workshop on “Evaluation of the Farmer Field School (FFS) for Anchoring Sustainable Integrated Pest Management By Small Farm Holders in the NENA Region” was held in Tunis (Tunisia), October 26-28, 2015. The NEPPO organized this workshop in the framework of a letter of Agreement (LoA) with the FAO Regional Office for the NENA Region in collaboration with the FAO Subregional Office for North Africa (SNE) and the Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture (Direction Générale de la Protection et du Contrôle de la Qualité des Produits Alimentaires). Twenty-five participants from 11 countries in the NENA Region in addition to Representative of NEPPO and FAO from HQs, SNE and RNE participated at the workshop.
Objectives of the workshop :
- To promote the positive attitudes and the importance of the IPM for the risk reduction associated with the use of agro-chemicals by small scale farmers;
- To promote the success stories on eco-friendly pest control methods validated in the region;
- To review the past experience/success stories of the NENA countries in FFS-IPM through FAO and other projects to support small scale farmers;
- Highlight the advantages and impact of the FFS on improvement of farmers’ farming attitude, production, livelihood and profitability;
- To discuss the lessons learnt from the past experience and identify and address any failure aspects/obstacles challenging the success of the FFS;
- To come up with feasible recommendations/action plan to improve/sustain the IPM-FFS in the region
The workshop organized in three session
- Introductory presentation on objectives of the workshop. NEPPO
Session 1: Presentation of the IPM FFS
- NEPPO and its Role. Mekki Chouibani (NEPPO)
- Overview of the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in the NENA region. Shoki AL Dobai (FAO-RNE)
- Regional Initiative on Small Scale Agriculture. Alfredo Impiglia (FAO-RNE)
- FFS contribution to rural community development: case study of Jordan and Tunisia. Ms. Lucie Chocholat
Session 2 Countries’ experiences and strategy adopted to sustain IPM FFS
FFS Regional Networks and Guidance Document for good quality FFS programs. Manuella Allara
Session 3 Working group
Conclusion and Recommendations
Based on the positive evidence presented during the workshop; and building on the strong experiences developed by the regional programme on FFS-IPM by FAO and its counterparts/stakeholders, the participants presented the following recommendations for the NENA region:
- To continue promoting FFS for sustainable agriculture and food systems for small scale farmers
- To strengthen IPM approach and technologies dissemination among farmers
To establish a friendly and effective FFS-IPM network at the regional level for knowledge sharing and communication identifying essential stakeholders for the establishment of the network
Regarding the creation of a network, the following points were discussed and agreed upon:
Vision: Sustainable IPM-FFS approach in the NENA region
Objectives:
- To have a regional platform for information and knowledge sharing on FFS, IPM and sustainable agriculture.
- To create common understanding on good quality of FFS
- To enhance capacities on FFS-IPM in the region.
- To raise awareness and visibility on FFP-IPM