Farmer Field Schools

The Farmer Field School (FFS) approach is a participatory methodology of technology development and dissemination which gives the farmer an opportunity to learn through practical field activities. The special feature of FFS is field based learning and acts as a primary venue of learning for farmers. The FFS programme also empowers the farmers to take economically viable decisions by adopting the practices of Integrated Crop Management (ICM). For the success of any programme there should be a periodical appraisal and evaluation of what is being done so that suitable changes can be made for effective functioning. Since Department of Agriculture organized many number of farmer field schools on rice in Nellore district an attempt was made to study the impact of the FFS programme in terms of knowledge gained extent of adoption productivity and profitability levels of ICM practices by the participant and non participant farmers of rice FFS.