The “Rehabilitation of Degraded Agricultural Lands in Kandy, Badulla and Nuwara Eliya Districts in the Central Highlands”, (RDALP) is a project implemented by FAO and funded by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) through its land degradation portfolio. The main objective of the project is to To reverse and arrest land degradation in agricultural lands in Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and Badulla districts in the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka. Mid term progress review of the project was conducted in August 2019 and implementation of Farmer Field School (FFS) was proposed to include in the project implementation plan. FFS is a group based participatory learning process which will support the component two of the project namely “Implementation of the identified land restoration technologies in the affected areas of the three districts through a participatory process”. FFS considered to be an effective participatory model to mainstream Sustainable Land Management (SLM) practice and implementation of FFS will directly support to meet the Output 2.3 of the project, namely “SLM training program developed and implemented”
The project commissioned the development of an FFS capacity building action plan, finalized in February 2020. According to the plan, TOT and FFS training program to be developed and implemented for home garden, sustainable tea production in small holder tea lands, Good Agriculture practices (GAP) in vegetable and fruit production and seed potato production. TOT materials will be developed with the participation of relevant experts and TOT program for above mentioned four categories will be implemented with the support of experts. These TOT programs will be conducted to government and private extension officers, NGOs, field officers in agriculture development and farmer leaders.
Green Movement of Sri Lanka (GMSL) is an implementing partner of the project and expected to implement following activities. Development and implementation ofFFS capacity building program per MTR recommendations is key task mandated under the assignment. This will include the implementation of Training of Trainers courses on sustainable tea cultivation, sustainable home gardening, seed potato cultivation and GAP-Vegetables as well as the implementation of both pilot and second cycle of Farmers Field Schools.
