Webinar series – Leveraging digital innovations in FFS. #1: Assessing digital readiness of FFS Facilitators and farmers

10/04/2025 10/04/2025

We are excited to invite you to the first webinar in our new series on leveraging digital innovations in FFS: insights from the field.

About the Webinar Series

Over the past four decades, the Farmer Field School (FFS) approach has successfully reached an estimated 20 million farmers across more than 100 countries. While significant progress has been made, emerging challenges—including climate change, pest outbreaks, and resource depletion—require innovative adaptations to better support farmers. Digital tools offer a powerful way to enhance learning, strengthen collaboration, and improve productivity in small-scale farming.

This webinar series, organized as part of the E-Empowerment project, will explore how digital tools can be effectively integrated into FFS programmes to enhance smallholder farmers’ learning, productivity, and sustainability. Each session will highlight innovative solutions, real-world applications, and opportunities for co-developing digital solutions with farmers.

Webinar #1: Assessing digital readiness for FFS facilitators and farmers – A methodology and early results

Date: 10th of April 2025

Time: 13h00-14h00 GMT+1

Digital tools in Farmer Field Schools (FFS) enhance engagement, learning, and access to information, training, and markets. However, poor digital strategies can worsen inequalities and weaken training quality. Understanding local digital access, skills, and use is key to effective and inclusive integration.

Under the project “E-empowerment” of small-scale producers: leveraging digital tools sustainably in Farmer Field Schools (FFS), the FAO’s Office of Innovation, in collaboration with the Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division and the FAO country offices in Syria and Mozambique, has developed and launched a methodology for the digital readiness assessments of FFS master trainers, facilitators, and farmers. This methodology enables interventions to understand the digital profiles of crucial FFS actors, their digital literacy levels and the digital technologies that can best support FFS impacts for all.

Join us to discover the FFS digital readiness assessment methodology, its key components, and how it can be used to ensure digital tools are integrated in a way that is conducive to gender equality and youth empowerment in communities.

What You’ll Learn:

Key components of the Digital Readiness Assessment

Insights on the current and potential use of digital tools in FFS

Strategies to ensure inclusive digital learning in agriculture

How digital integration aligns with the Principles for Digital Development

Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of the discussion on the future of digital learning in FFS.

Interested in digital innovation in FFS? Join the Global FFS Community of Practice to exchange ideas, tools, and experiences on leveraging digital solutions to support smallholder farmers.

Stay informed on FFS news on digital tools by visiting the Global FFS Platform website.

(Source of Information: https://www.fao.org/farmer-field-schools/news-events/detail-events/en/c/1735399/)