A training programme being conducted at the Farmer Field School in Thirappane

The Farmer Field School (FFS)at Thirappane trains farmers and give hands-on experience on Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices to address the challenges of building strategies for climate change mitigation, adaptation, and food security (crop productivity),  which are closely related to agriculture and minimize their potential negative impacts and technologies to the beneficiary farmers of hot spot areas in 11 districts of six provinces such as North Western, North Central, Northern, Eastern, Uva and Southern Provinces where the CSIAP is being implemented. The FFS project costs around Rs 40Mn and the Ministry of Agriculture is the main agency responsible for executing the project.  The Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP) funded by the World Bank and implemented under the Ministry of Agriculture. increases and builds the capacities of farmers for the use of CSA technologies to combat the climate change impact. The project aims to build a village-level resource person pool with the competencies of CSA technologies & practices from support organization officials and selected leader farmers through the newly established FFS.

 The main objective of FFS is to enhance the capacities of support organization officials and farmer leaders to promote CSA technologies and practices in their villages. Subsequently, the project aims to impart their knowledge and skills on CSA practices to village-level potential farmers to respond to the adverse climate impacts in their villages. In addition, the project mobilizes trained leader farmers to organize training activities and disseminate knowledge on CSA practices among peer groups. All training programs are conducted with the collaboration of the Extension division of the Department of Agriculture (DOA), Peradeniya, including the allocation of potential resource persons for training sessions. All sessions are to be organized as residential (03 days) intensive, multi-session and multi-activity group learning sessions that use lectures, group discussions, demonstrations of practical activities, videos, and other audio-visual resources as well as entertainment activities (drams and role play), etc.

The fifth o training programme is being conducted presently at the FFS with the participation of 18 lead farmers including 05 women from the Thunukkai Agrarian Service Centre area in Mullaitivu Districts.  Apart from the in-house lectures delivered, farmers were given hands-on experience in the field by subject specialists.

Dr. T. Karunainathan, Deputy Director (Research), Dr. M.S. Najiamudeen, Principal Agriculture Scientist at  Field Crops Research and Development Institute (FSRDI) in Mahailluppallama delivered lectures and provided participants with hand on experience in both cultivation and irrigation areas.  Mr. Farnk Jayasinghe, CSA Specialist (PMU), Mr. W.K..P.C Perera, Agri-Business & Market Linkage Specialist, Mr. Samantha Mallawaarachchi, IEC & ICT Specialist, Ms. Sharmila Shanmuganathan, Gender Development Officer of the CSIAP also delivered lectures in their subject areas at FFS.