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Bangladesh IPM Trainers, farmers,
Department of Agriculture and Extension officials and the A-Team trainers
designed the curriculum for the TOT’s. Each A-Team trainer then
supported a training site.
“We
both had a lot of interesting experiences when we learned together with
our friends the Bangladeshi IPM trainers and Farmers Trainers. They have
excellent capabilities regarding the technical aspects of agriculture and
high motivation to develop IPM.”
Guntara
“There is a strong
solidarity among farmers in Bangladesh. The TOT for Farmer IPM Trainers
relies on this solidarity to prepare farmers as community organizers. We also
built social and structural analytical activities into the curriculum. These
activities gave farmers a chance to critically examine the conditions in which
they work and live. Such critical thinking is the first step to helping
farmers empower themselves.”
Muhammad
A. Zambani
2.
Cambodia: A TOT for Farmer IPM
Trainers in Vegetable
IPM
From
29 March to 10 April 1999, 30 Vegetable IPM FFS alumni participated in a
TOT for Farmer IPM Trainers in IPM on Vegetables. The participants were
all vegetable farmers (nine of them were women) from Kandal Province, Seam
Reap Province, and Phnom Penh. The participants had just finished their
FFS on IPM Vegetables, and were selected as participants in this training
based on their performance during the FFS.
The
curriculum of the TOT focused on three major topics: the FFS as a learning
model, adult non-formal education approaches, and vegetable IPM technical
matters.
The team of facilitators included two national trainers
from the National IPM Office, Yeach Polo and Try Hong, Cambodian A-Team
members, and four Provincial Trainers. All of them were experienced in
facilitating a TOT in rice IPM. Simon H Tambunan, an A-Team member from
the FAO-IPM Regional Office, also joined the team to share his expertise
on adult education and Community IPM with participants and trainers.
His task, essentially, was to help both trainers and participants to
become good facilitators.
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“This
was the first real ‘consultancy’ that I had ever done. I found
it difficult to determine when was the most appropriate point to make a
suggestion. Second, I wondered when to insist upon a change I had
suggested. I did not want to disrupt the good dynamics that had
developed among the trainers. I found within a few days that if I
had ideas and made suggestions, people were eager to hear them. I
also learned that I would become insistent when it was apparent that a
principle basic to Community IPM was going to be eroded should a
contemplated training method or approach actually be put into use.”
Simon
HT
3.
A Season-long Rice IPM
TOT
in Hubei Province – P.R. China
July
through October 1999 was a busy period in Hubei Province for rice IPM
training activities. A rice IPM TOT was conducted in the city of
Yingcheng for 30 participants. Participants in the TOT conducted rice IPM
Farmer Field Schools as part of their training. Finally, a TOT for
Farmer IPM Trainers was conducted in Dangyang City for one week in which 32
farmers participated. Engkus Kuswara, an A-Team trainer, provided
support for the training teams in these TOT’s
‘Field
Experiments’ (season-long studies) are one of the most important learning
activities conducted in a season-long TOT. The 30 participants were divided
into 6 small groups. Each small group was responsible for two field studies.
Groups did regular field observations of their study plots and once a week
each group presented a summary of the developments in their study, very
similar to an agroecosystem analysis. This
weekly ‘seminar’ allowed all participants to learn about each study that
was being conducted during the TOT.
Some
of the field experiments that were conducted in the TOT included de-tillering
study, leaf damage experiment, the impact of insecticide on plant hopper
populations, water management, fertilizer, and the ‘Insect Zoo’.
The field experiments were created based on actual field problems and the
application of IPM Principles. Another important aspect of the
experiments was that participants learn about how to do such studies.
This would allow them to be able to help farmers to learn how to do similar
studies.
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