Farmers in Rubavu and Nyabihu districts have said that the farmer –to-farmer extension model better known as farmer field school (FFS) has lifted them out of poverty through the increase of productivity.

Gaudence Sinanga, a resident of Myuga Cell in Kabatwa Sector, Nyabihu District, said that learning from FFS has helped her family boost production and improve on the living conditions.

"I started benefitting from FFS in 2010, I have since learnt how to follow up on my crops from the sowing process to postharvest and harvest handling,” Sinange said, while addressing delegates at the Africa Agriculture Science Week that ended in Kigali.

With that knowledge, she added, production from her nine-acre farm has increased three-fold, which has empowered her economically.

Nichodeme Byukusenge, another member of a farmer field school in Kanama sector, Rubavu District said FFS helped him make follow up on plants right from sowing to the time of harvesting, and with support of extension workers.

"This has helped me a lot as my crops can no longer be hurtled by diseases since I identify them at early stage and take action following my skills in integrated pest management that I also acquired from FFS,” he testified.

Blaise Harerimana, the director of agriculture and animal resources in the agriculture ministry, said FFS have not only helped farmers improve productivity and living conditions, but also transformed agriculture.

Twigire Muhinzi has front line extension agents comprising 14,200 Farmer Promoters (one in each village) and 2,500 Farmer Field School (FFS) facilitators recruited from local communities and work on voluntary basis

Charles Dhewe, the chief executive officer of the Zimbabwe based Knowledge Transfer Africa said the Twigire Muhinzi could be taken to other countries to enable fast agricultural transformation.

He said; "what we have learned is that the Twigire Muhinzi is quite interesting and educative because apart from finding that farmers are the same everywhere, it shows that mobilizing farmers to organize is just important.

"Bringing farmers together as a cooperative helps them to know what to produce and for who as the only way we, Africans can develop if we know that beyond producing for ourselves, for our own households we need to produce for processing, and FFS is the best way to go about that. It is a success story that could be introduced in other countries,” he said.