IMPACT OF FARMERS’ FIELD SCHOOLS ON ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION IN KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA, PAKISTAN

Farmer Field School is a type of non formal education. It has a significant impact in educating farming community regarding protection of environment and healthier life of people. Keeping the importance of this very aspect in mind, a study was therefore, carried out in 2010 to determine the impact of Farmer Field Schools (FFS) on environment protection. For this purpose, six districts from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, Mardan, Swabi and Kohat were selected. Data were collected on various aspects of environment protection from 240 randomly selected FFS farmers. Researchers collected the data with a pre tested interview schedule using survey technique. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics showing means and standard deviations. However, researchers also applied a paired t-test for comparison of responses of FFS farmers in the pre and post FFS periods. The results show that FFS have highly protected the environment through reduced use of pesticides and fertilizers. Furthermore, FFS promoted local recipes for controlling insect/pests which helped a lot in protecting the environment from pollution. It may be concluded that FFS had a positive impact on protection of environment. Highest impact of FFS was recorded in the reduction of pesticides’ use that ranked 1st with mean values 3.27, 3.73 and SD 0.52, 0.64 in the pre and post FFS periods, respectively. Use of fertilizers that ranked 2nd with mean values 3.26, 3.68 and SD 0.51, 0.64 in the pre and post FFS periods, respectively. FFS helped farming community to control water, soil and aerial pollution which ranked 3rd, 4th and 5th with mean values 3.31, 3.78 and 3.35, 3.86 and 3.37, 3.85 with SD 0.54, 0.63 and 0.52, 0.62 and 0.50, 0.62, respectively. Therefore, it is important for policy makers to plan to improve the environment and ultimately improve human life.