Farmers First Training Workshops on Methodological Framework Across ICAR Institutes

The Farmers’ FIRST initiative has been launched by ICAR to move beyond the production and productivity; to privilege the smallholder agriculture; and complex, diverse and risk prone realities of majority of the farmers through enhancing farmers-scientists interface. The acronym “Farmer FIRST” means the farmers’ Farm, Innovations, Resources, Science and Technology (FIRST). The basic concept is that the farmer will be in a centric role for research problem identification, prioritization, conduct of experiments and its management in farmers’ field conditions. It emphasizes resource management, climate resilient agriculture, production management including storage, marketing, supply chains, value chains, innovation systems, information systems etc. With this concept, Agricultural Extension Division of ICAR, New Delhi funded the project Farmer FIRST Programme for ICAR Institutes/ Agricultural Universities.

The Project Management Team ICAR-NAARM along with ICAR- NIAP, ICAR-IASRI and ICAR-DKMA are involved in management, capacity building, impact assessment, content development and showcasing of the technological interventions implemented by 51 FFP institutes all over the country in 23 States. NAARM team organized and coordinated a series of training workshops on “Methodological Framework for Implementation of Farmer FIRST Programme” for the benefit of 236 participants from 51 FFP institutes of 23 states with the support of host institutes as detailed below:

These training workshops covered the following topics

• Overview of FFP
• Participatory Technology Development
• Select PRA tools
• Impact Assessment and Qualitative and Quantitative analysis
• Content Development and Management
• Showcasing of intervention outputs and outcomes
• Process Documentation

(Source: ICAR-NAARM, Hyderabad)