by FAO Rural Youth
Published on: Mar 30, 2004
Topic:
Type: Interviews
https://www.tigweb.org/express/panorama/article.html?ContentID=3085
Junior Farmer Field Schools is to be established in Zimbabwe with financial support from Sweden and collaboration from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the Catholic Relief Service. FAO has considerable experience in developing Farmer Field Schools for adults, where farmers are brought together to learn how to deal with situations and conditions in their field during critical stages of the growing season. The learning schedules in the different communities will be developed in a participatory manner with youth and adult farmers with technical support provided by FAO and ICRISAT. With the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe, there is an increasing loss of local agricultural knowledge due to death and sickness of parents who were actively involved in farming. JFFS is an attempt to bridge the gap by providing young people with the necessary skills, knowledge and experiences they need to become productive and contributing members of their local communities. Training will include entrepreneurship, basic business skills, HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation; health and nutrition; family planning and technical skills in agriculture enterprises such as cash and food crop production and poultry production. Twenty such Schools will be started involving more than 400 young people. Lessons learned from this experience will be applied to other countries around the world. « return.