Monday 18 August 2008, the Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, HE Amin Abaza visited a Farmer Field School in the company of the Dutch Ambassador, HE Suzan Blankhart and the Governor of Fayoum, HE Dr. Galal Moustafa Said, who hosted the officials in his Governorate. The delegation sat down and made itself at home for an hour in the simple shaded structure that houses the Sennouris village farmer field school in order to discuss a variety of subjects with the field school participants.

The rural women proved that they had learnt a lot during the several months that they had been attending the school by freely giving their opinion on a variety of subjects such as how to prevent bird flu and best practices for keeping livestock, caring for the environment, health, literacy, eliminating bad habits and the importance of having legal documents such as ID cards. The ladies mentioned that, when necessary, they transfer what they have learnt to others such as their husbands or other family members and neighbors.

The Farmer Field School (FFS) in question is one of the 235 currently operating FFS created with the support of Fayoum Farmer Field Schools Project, a Technical Cooperation project of the Dutch Government and the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation in the Fayoum Governorate. The total Netherlands Government contribution to the Farmer Field Schools project is Euro 3,453,565 from January 2008 – March 2011. Each FFS is composed of a group of around 25 farmers who are interested in forming a non-formal participatory learning group in which they will meet for about two hours every week for a year to learn about topics of interest. At least half of the expected 30,000 FFS participants that will attend FFS during the current three-year project will be female farmers. Some of the farmer field schools are all male, others all-female and some are mixed; criteria for joining are interest and a willingness to learn.

The project builds on a long history of Dutch Technical Cooperation in the agriculture sector in the Governorate of Fayoum; from 2001 to 2007 more than 2000 FFS have completed their one-year cycle. The current Fayoum Farmer Field School project will consolidate the successes of previous projects; broaden the range of the topics covered; link the FFS with relevant development organizations and institutions; and introduce the FFS approach to interested Governorates.