14 Issues in this Publication (Showing issues 50 - 20) Previous
Using Pesticides Safely - Facilitator's Guide - 2020/04/20
Learning Outcomes – Participants will be able to:
1. Understand that all pesticides are poisons, should only be used if necessary, and must be applied following strict safety protocols
2. Know how to interpret pesticide labels
3. Know how to safely handle, apply, and store pesticides
4. Know common pesticide poisoning symptoms
Pre-Requisites:
1. Integrated Pest Management
How to experiment on your farm - Facilitator's Guide - 2020/04/20
Learning Outcomes – Participants will:
1. Understand the importance of experimentation in their own farms
2. Appreciate the value of experiments they and their neighbours have done in the past
3. Know how to set up controlled experiments in their own farms
Lead Farmer Training - Facilitator's Guidebook - 2020/04/20
This guidebook is designed to help facilitate a Lead Farmers’ (LF) training in preparation and orientation for their work. It focuses on preparing individual LFs with strategies and methods when faced with socio-cultural challenges and obstacles that may come from their families, neighbors, community leaders, extension agents, NGOs, or even between themselves. It is very important to make sure that LFs believe in and support the ground rules/norms/ethics that will guide their work and decision making. For this reason, the training outlined in this guidebook is very participatory and flexible.
Initial training should take place after LFs have been selected by the community. Refresher trainings should follow each year. The facilitator should not give solutions for their challenges, but rather guide the LFs to come up with their own solutions. This is done by using skirts, stories, proverbs, and testimonies to spark discussion till they come to a consensus that suits their context. The aim is for them come up with their own solutions on what should be done when faced with challenges.
Collective Marketing
The marketing exercises in this Facilitator’s Guide began as a complement to the Conservation Agriculture (CA) promotion under the Scaling Up Conservation Agriculture (SUCA) project. Canadian Foodgrains Bank Members and Partners implemented this project from 2015-2020 with funding from Global Affairs Canada. SUCA staff promoted collective marketing as a means to enhance adoption of CA. Many Foodgrains Bank-funded projects continue to use this approach today.
The goal of the CA4Markets approach is to empower groups of farmers to be active sellers rather than passive “price-takers.” Marketing groups should make marketing decisions long before they plan to sell, in order to identify the best markets and to increase their net returns through increased sale volumes and quality of products. This Facilitator’s Guide will help marketing groups identify the best strategies to improve their market advantage.
Farmers should engage in learning activities and then capture their learning in a Planning Book.