Integrated Pest Management Farmer Field School for Sustainable Agriculture

The study was conducted among the two farmer groups in Bhaktapur and Kavre districts of Nepal. The main objective of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of IPM FFS on creating awareness and disseminating the knowledge on sustainable pest management to the farmers and to assess the relationships between enhanced IPM knowledge and adoption of IPM strategies by the farmers. The study has been based on data collected through personal interview with the farmers, focus group discussion, personal observation in the farmers field, discussions with the leader farmers, agro-vet owners, farmer facilitators of the FFS and also on secondary data collected from related publications of various organizations. The study has revealed that FFS is being an effective tool in increasing IPM knowledge and techniques of ecological pest management among the farmers. Farmers after participation in the IPM FFS were more confident in managing their fields and taking pest control decisions and have been reducing the use of hazardous chemical pesticides and adoption of eco-friendly pest control measures was on the move. This justifies the potential of IPM FFS as an effective mechanism for increasing both knowledge of IPM and the adoption of IPM strategies.