Farmers reached or proposed: 1,245
Size of land: 1,160 ha
Duration: 2016 – 2018
Implementing partner: Olam
Other partners involved: WASI, DARD, Women’s Union, Farmers’ Union, Farm Tree Services
About the Program
The project strategy is centred on participatory adult education methods applied in a Farmer Field School (FFS) setting. We will diverge from traditional FFSs that are very much based on field observations, through expanding such discussions by feeding them with accurate farm agronomic and economic data. Underpinning the FFS program is a series of capacity building events, including methodological capacity building, technical capacity building, and revision of training materials based on the national sustainability curriculum.
The Farmer Field Book (FFB) is an integral part of this project. A stratified random sample of 150 farmers will keep daily records of all their activities, investments and outputs. The stratification will be such that we include four to five different types of farming systems that have varying degrees of climate change resilience.
To support farmer decision-making capacity, Olam will pilot some of innovative services that in turn will contribute to reaching the objectives of the project. Such services include regular soil testing, on-farm tests of new irrigation systems, random tests of fertilizer quality and collaboration with private nursery operators to ensure adequate availability of young shade trees to farmers.
To ensure the sustainability of the project, basic service supply, shall be incorporated into the trader commercial operations throughout the implementation process. Some services that have a clear and direct benefit to farmers (e.g. soil sampling and fertilizer advice) will be made available at cost. Once farmers get used to paying for some services, gradual expansion of service packages will be implemented, hopefully, to include FFB analysis for farmers beyond the project duration.
Impact areas:
- Improved irrigation efficiency
- Reduction in carbon foot print of project coffee production
- Incorporation of different modalities of shading in coffee farms
- Insight into costs and benefits of different climate change proof production system by farmers and other project partners
- Insight into development of toxic loading over time including carbon foot prints from farm to port and associated farm economics
For more information:
Trần Thị Quỳnh Chi | chitran@idhsustainabletrade.com
Rajarshi Chakravorty | rajarshi.chakravorty@olamnet.com