Analysis of Application of the Farmer Field School Approach in the Integrated Pest Management: A Case Study in the East Azarbayjan Province

The Farmer Field School (FFS) approach has been recognized to be an innovatively participatory and systemic perspective to enhance farmers’ knowledge regarding the Integrated Pest Management (IPM), pesticide reduction, healthy food production and environmental hazard elimination. This study aims to explore the experience and process of utilizing the FFS projects in the East Azerbaijan Province of Iran, and to investigate farmers’ views regarding the impacts of these projects through an exploratory-descriptive case study with agricultural professionals and participant farmers of these projects in four townships of this province. The FFS projects have limitedly covered farmers and have utilized participatory techniques and on farm meetings, but the IPM activities have been implemented in a selected orchard or farm of just one of the FFS participant farmers in each village, while the other participant farmers acted as observers or audiences of the FFS meetings, without direct involvement in implementing advised activities in their own farms. The FFS projects had only covered male farmers, mostly progressive farmers, and neglected rural women. The macro programs regarding this approach have been developed through a top-down process. However, at the micro level, in contrast to the conventional transfer of technology approach, the FFS projects have been planned and implemented through the participation of various public and private professionals and local farmers. The projects have been effective in enhancing farmer's IPM knowledge, and observing appropriate principles of pesticide use and spraying time, but farmers have not extensively been able to put their knowledge advised by FFS projects into action in their farms. The pesticide use reduction can to some extend be related to the farmers’ knowledge improvement due to FFS projects, but this decrease can also be influenced by other factors.