Farmer business school with climate change and gender perspective : Learning and monitoring guide

The farmer business school (FBS) is a participatory action learning process that involves farmer groups participating in agricultural value chains. As part of capacity strengthening, FBS comprises a series of group‐based experiential learning activities over a production‐marketing cycle while interacting with other chain actors and stakeholders. As a tangible outcome of FBS, the farmer‐participants are expected to initiate or strengthen a business upon completing the FBS learning process. FBS aspires to more profitable pro‐poor farm business through market‐oriented innovations that enhance trust, coordination, and collaboration between farmers and other chain actors while empowering men and women farmers, thus ultimately contributing to sustainable livelihoods of targeted farming households. This manual provides guidelines and tools to be used by senior and field staff of large-scale development projects for planning, implementing and monitoring the FBS process.


Preface
The farmer business school (FBS) is a participatory action learning process that involves farmer groups participating in agricultural value chains. As part of capacity strengthening, FBS comprises a series of group-based experiential learning activities over a production-marketing cycle while interacting with other chain actors and stakeholders. As a tangible outcome of FBS, the farmer-participants are expected to initiate or strengthen a business upon completing the FBS learning process. FBS aspires to more profitable pro-poor farm business through market-oriented innovations that enhance trust, coordination, and collaboration between farmers and other chain actors while empowering men and women farmers, thus ultimately contributing to sustainable livelihoods of targeted farming households.
The  What is the FBS learning and monitoring guide?
The FBS learning and monitoring guide (FBS-LMG) is primarily meant to guide the FBS facilitators in their weekly sessions, and remind them of the expected output for each session. It is not a replacement of the farmer business school (FBS) manual that remains a 'must-read' for adequate FBS preparation; providing the details of the concepts, principles, and directions to the facilitators. The manual should be read during and after the training of facilitators (TOF), before the FBS implementation, and as preparation for the refresher course. Furthermore, the FBS-LMG guides FBS facilitators and the FBS Core Team of the implementing organizations in identifying and addressing challenges (mentoring) and tracking progress (monitoring) in implementation.
The FBS-LMG is an operational, easy-to-use checklist of activities and outputs that the facilitators can easily refer to during the FBS session. It consists of the following sections: 1. Implementation and facilitation of FBS: discusses the basic relationship and importance of intertwined processes: FBS facilitation, monitoring, and mentoring, and describes the different responsibilities of facilitators relative to their respective monitoring and mentoring functions.

Implementation and facilitation of FBS
The farmer business school with climate change and gender perspective is a community-based business cycle-long entrepreneurial learning activity that engages farmer groups in the development or upgrading of their businesses through participatory processes, and by interacting with other value chain actors as they get exposed to the dynamics in supply and market chains.

The FBS Implementation Framework
The FBS implementation framework is crucial and should be discussed and clearly defined during the overall planning of FBS. The FBS Core Team will be in charge to coordinate, supervise, monitor, and mentor the implementation of the FBS. The day-to-day implementation of FBS will be led by different facilitators who also provide oversight. A crucial role will be played by the mentor facilitator (MF). They will have a good understanding of marketing, value chain and product development as well as outstanding capacity to work closely with farmers and be committed to communities.
The community facilitator (CF) will be a progressive member of the farmers' group enrolled in FBS and is expected to have skills in facilitating the group process, or high potential to acquire such skills.
A CF will be identified for each FBS and will facilitate the FBS sessions of the group, ideally the one to which they belong.
It is recommended that at least two MF are identified for facilitating all sessions implemented in one or two FBS groups.
Therefore, for successful implementation of FBS, all three facilitators (one CF and two MF) are expected to jointly and collaboratively facilitate all sessions. The MF will also be responsible for regularly submitting monitoring reports (e.g. checklist) to the FBS Core Team who establishes and maintains an FBS status database, access to which will be granted to CIP staff in charge of capacity building and technical backstopping. Selection and/or hiring of staff by the implementing organization will be informed by the recommendations provided by CIP in the draft terms of reference.
The FBS Core Team and FBS Facilitators will undergo about a week's TOF on FBS organized by CIP. Upon completion of the training, the monitoring-mentoring framework can be adjusted and terms of reference for the different facilitators refined, accordingly.

Facilitation, Monitoring and Mentoring
FBS Core Team and FBS Facilitators will all perform facilitating, monitoring and mentoring functions. However, they will have well-defined and different responsibilities in the process. Facilitators should clearly understand the monitoring-mentoring function as part of the facilitation process. Accordingly, the FBS training has specific sessions on facilitation, and FBS monitoring. The connection should be made clear during the TOF-FBS to ensure that facilitators perform the monitoring-mentoring function well enough to achieve objectives and comply with the requirements of the implementing organization.
It has been said that: "Facilitation is the practice of providing leadership without taking the reins. A facilitator for community engagement gets others to take responsibility and to take the lead on different tasks that will result in collaborative efforts to address the issue around which the engagement is taking place" 1 . Therefore, the different facilitators are trained so that they can learn how to use methods and tools that enable the FBS group to understand the vision and purpose of its engagement, the means to achieve its objectives and targets, and ways of tracking whether the group and its members are progressing well towards the final goal of initiating or strengthening a business. Facilitators need to balance time, the degree of uncertainty around key issues, and the maturity and strength of the FBS group, and help the members to find the best possible option or action to address the challenge or opportunity. Facilitation for entrepreneurship and value chain development requires a set of skills that teases out the participants' existing and potential skills to listen, motivate, and develop the different capabilities to teach, mentor, and manage learning processes.
If facilitation is the means of getting the processes done without imposition, then monitoring allows tracking and assessing the accomplishment. If outputs in terms of process and/or concrete compliance indicators are not, or only partly met, or there are other needs/gaps to be addressed to achieve outputs, facilitators should mentor the FBS group themselves, or facilitate access to external specialists, technicians, business service providers, and others to provide the required mentoring to the FBS group. 1. an immersion process in order to: a) clarify with the participating organization and farmer group(s) the FBS process b) identify the members who will commit to FBS sessions through until the business launch.

Summary of modules
2. the conduct of the FBS refresher course by the implementing organization's Core Team for the Community and mentor facilitators, especially to include the use of the FBS Learning Guide and the FBS Monitoring Guide.
Expected outputs: 1. capability of local facilitators to conduct FBS enhanced.
2. the use of FBS manual, learning guide, and monitoring guide clarified and understood.
3. supplies and materials, logistics, and templates for documented outputs understood and prepared. There is need to assess which farmer groups are eligible or potential FBS participants using the following criteria: (1) organized and with high enough potentials to engage in business enterprise; (2) strong interest; (3) good potential of improving the supply chain (i.e. needed raw materials and other inputs).
The FBS refresher course, if necessary, should be conducted at this stage.  Activities 4, 7, and 8 may not take much time as these are partly discussed in module 0.

Module 2 Group formation and strengthening for enterprise development
This module aims to assess, form and strengthen the farmers groups for enterprise development or chain improvement. It has three sessions: (1) livelihood and business visioning, (2) individual and group capacity assessment, and (3) learning and working together.

Session 1. Group formation for enterprise operation
Objective: 1. To validate the potential enterprise for chain development or upgrading 2. To form the FBS group based on the validated enterprise/value chain.

Duration: 1 hour
This is a brief session where the trainer-facilitator will present the identified/validated enterprise/value chain based on the preliminary assessments. The facilitator describes the possible organization/formation of the group members according to the different activities (e.g. production, processing, marketing, business recording) that will be involved for the enterprise to operate. The organizational structure of the business enterprise will then be identified.

Session 2. Livelihood and business visioning
Objectives: At the end of the session, participants should be able to: 1. discuss key livelihood and business concepts 2. develop and share their livelihood and business vision 3. prioritize related market chain(s) of the validated/prioritized commodity(ies).

Duration: 2 hours
Learning content and methods The outputs will be synthesized and documented by the facilitator for review by the participants.

Session 3: Learning and working together
Objectives: At the end of the session, participants should be able to: The outputs will be synthesized and documented by the facilitator for review by the participants.

SPECIAL TOPIC: Facilitation skills building
The purposes of this session are to: 1. stress the importance and principles of the facilitation function in the FBS process 2. help build/improve facilitation skills.
This session will be conducted by an invited implementing organization's resource person or the FBS Facilitator.

Module 3 Introducing business and marketing concepts
This module aims to introduce key concepts on business, enterprise, market supply and value chains. It consists of two sessions: (1) market-supply and value chain perspectives, and (2) entrepreneurship for small-scale producers.
Module 3 starts with a practical discussion of the concepts and principles of market supply and value chains, especially the differences between the three in terms of forward and backward linkages: value chain concept's main difference involving the importance of facilitation and collaboration of all chain actors for mutual benefits. This is session 1, which includes a market visit for experiential learning of the concepts and principles, as well as serving as a primer for module 4 on the value chain assessment.

Objectives
At the end of the session, participants should be able to: 1. understand the concepts of business and enterprise, supply-market chains, and adding value 2. identify the value chain actors, potential service providers and other stakeholders, and their roles in the value chain. The market visit is field work guided by the facilitator that introduces participants to the market and business concepts and enables them to map the chain. The participants are expected to learn from the different marketsupply chain actors. The members work in sub-groups to enable them to conduct the most interviews in the limited time (2 hours excluding travel time). It is important to have made adequate preparation for the market visit. The subgroups choose a leader who can facilitate the interviews, clarifying the checklist of data/information to be gathered from each actor, allocating people to note-taking, analyzing gathered data/information, and organizing for reporting.

Definitions
During the interviews with a limited number of chain actors, participants should gather and record information about other chain actors as well. Also, implementing organization's facilitators should have made prior arrangements with appropriate organizations or chain actors for the market visit.
After the interviews and direct observation, participants go back to the venue for the discussion, analyzes of fieldwork outputs, organization and sharing of outputs. It is suggested that the market visit be scheduled at a time when most chain actors can be found.
Synthesis by facilitator. In addition to summarizing the outputs of the market visit exercise noting the initial supply and market chain maps, the synthesis should emphasize the importance of the exercise in identifying additional supply and market chain actors, understanding how to contact and better engage them in preparation for the conduct of value chain assessment in module 4.

Session 2: Entrepreneurship for small-scale producers
Objectives At the end of the session, participants should be able to: 1. discuss the concept of entrepreneurship and the role of local entrepreneurs 2. identify different types of business organizations, and describe their relative advantages and means of growth.

Module 4 Identifying and prioritizing chain opportunities and interventions
This module aims to assess and prioritize challenges and opportunities across the supply and market chains using appropriate tools. The chain mapping exercise in module 3 can provide the lead to the different chain actors who will be interviewed during this module's value chain assessment.
The chain assessment results can help analyze how improvements can be made at the different points or nodes in the chain: from inputs to production, processing, marketing, and consumption, including the logistics in the different parts.
The module consists of five sessions: (1) planning for value chain assessment, (2) conducting the chain assessment, (3) discussion and analysis of the chain assessment results, (4) sharing and validation with chain actors, potential support services providers, and stakeholders; and (5) analyzing and prioritizing chain upgrading opportunities and interventions.

Session 1: Planning for supply-market-value chain assessment
Objectives At the end of the session, participants should be able to: 1. understand the importance and purpose of value chain assessments 2. plan and organize chain assessments 3. present the potential interventions in the chain functions/actors based on the chain assessment results.

Duration: 3 hours
Session1, on planning and organizing for the value chain assessment, can already be done following session 2 of module 3, as the latter is a short session. The assessment should focus on the relevant chain of the target commodity enterprise while also enabling a good understanding of the other related chains.
Before the conduct of the value chain assessment, the facilitator should have prepared for the module 4 field work by contacting the chain actors to be interviewed or who are involved in the group discussions. This is critical as engaging with some chain actors, like traders and businessmen, could be challenging. It is also important to legitimize this process by sending communication to the relevant officials.
The use of checklist of data/information needs for each chain actor is very useful. The checklist in module 3 can be refined and tailored to the specific enterprise value chain.

TOPICS METHODS
Target commodity/supply-market chain/ service providers and stakeholders to visit/interview Group discussion; brainstorming, meta cards

Objectives
At the end of the session, participants should be able to: 1. identify the interventions needed to develop or improve the value chain, and translate them into a design for testing 2. organize and prepare for testing interventions/innovations, including roles/task assignments, guidelines, and tools to be used.
Duration: 2 hours (if group decides on multiple innovations then will need more time)

Moving from the identification of innovations to design or activity plan Group exercise
Preparing for activities to test innovations, defining roles of members, tasking: production to marketing, and identifying sources of support services and/or specialists/resource persons needed to test the innovations/interventions.

Group discussion
Preparing guidelines and tools for testing prototype innovations: commercial, technical and social/cultural feasibility Group exercise

Objectives
At the end of the session, participants should be able to: 1. develop prototypes or improve the target interventions 2. undertake testing and refinement of interventions 3. monitor the process and results of innovation testing.

Duration: several weekly sessions based on the design and organization for the testing of innovations.
Learning content and methods:

Objectives
At the end of the session, participants should be able to use practical knowledge, information, and skills in applying interventions or innovations to the market chain. is to get feedback for further refinements or improvements to prepare for the business launch.

Post-Module 5: Planning for the Final Event
The business launch should be planned about two months before the target date. This is the responsibility of the implementing organization's management with the different levels of facilitators. Planning should begin immediately after completion of module 5.
After the SVW, at which the revised action plan has been developed, a suitable date should be identified for the business launch. Preparations can then be adequately undertaken, including the refinements of the product quality with improved packaging, etc.

Objectives
At the end of the session, participants should be able to: Engagement with BDS can begin during module 5 where resource persons or specialists and support service providers are needed to implement the planned interventions or innovations across the chain.
A panel discussion of BDS providers can be organized as a cluster activity involving all the FBS enterprises.

Panel Discussion:
A panel discussion consists of invited representatives of potential BDS providers relevant to the FBS group enterprises. Each panelist (e.g. experts in the relevant technologies, marketing, packaging, food safety, financing, entrepreneurship skills training) presents the support service that they provide, the process and how they can be accessed, each during a 10-15 minute session. Open forum follows for clarification and more information.
The following sessions may be adjusted in the actual implementation, as needed.

Session 1: Business development services
Objectives: At the end of the session, participants should be able to: 1. identify sources of BDS to help develop the enterprise and the corresponding business plan 2. prepare proposals for accessing financial resources.

Duration: 2 hours
Learning content and methods:

Module 7 Business planning
This module aims to help the enterprise groups develop business plans to make use of market opportunities. The business plan is prepared by building on realistic data/information covered during the process of applying and testing of innovations, as well as data/information gathered from modules 3 and 4. It consists of two sessions: (1) review of the value chain assessment outputs, and feedback to innovations; and (2) assistance to developing the business plan of the enterprise group.

Session 1: Review of value chain assessment outputs, and feedback to innovations
Objectives At the end of the session, participants should be able to: 1. review the chain assessment results 2. analyze the financial information related to innovations for incorporation into the business plan.

Duration: 2 hours
Learning content and methods:

Post-FBS support
After the FBS, the post-FBS plan is discussed and mapped for each enterprise. This means follow-up activities are identified and organized to provide support services to continue the improvements of the initiated enterprises.
Necessary BDS and ways of accessing them are also identified. The outputs of the post-BL session should be noted as these are important inputs to the post-FBS support plan.

Objectives
During the post-FBS support phase, participants should be able to: 1. monitor business performance and manage continuing challenges and opportunities 2. prepare and implement longer-term business plans.

Duration: To be determined
Learning content and methods:

TOPICS (EXAMPLES) METHODS
Monitoring of businesses, support services and external business environment

FBS groups' monitoring and consultation meetings
Linking activities with BDS Seminar series on special topics Mentoring/coaching

Managing business challenges and opportunities
Facilitating implementation of long-term business plans

FBS monitoring-mentoring toolkit
In order to achieve the objectives of the FBS, timely and adequate monitoring of FBS implementation is vital. The purpose of FBS monitoring is to check whether the planned activities and related exercise(s) are conducted and expected outputs are achieved in terms of both quality and quantity. Since the FBS is a complex process entailing both the strengthening of business capabilities and the upgrading of value chains or enterprises, it should be expected that needs, challenges, and opportunities arise in the process. Facilitators should be adequately equipped to have the technical knowledge and skills to address them through mentoring. Facilitators are themselves mentors but,, whenever needed, they should also facilitate identifying and accessing external resource persons with specific knowledge and skills. Mentoring needs are often identified in the monitoring process.
In order to guide the process, an FBS monitoring-mentoring toolkit is provided. It consists of the FBS monitoringmentoring guide, and the FBS monitoring checklist.
The The FBS monitoring checklist (FBS-MC) is a handy-to-carry tool that helps with checking the progress of FBS implementation by session; whether the session has accomplished the target activity(ies) and achieved expected output(s). It also helps identify specific needs and problems to be addressed. The Core Team and FBS facilitators have diverse and complementing roles in using the checklist. The FBS facilitators should complete the checklist immediately after the completion of the relevant session to ensure compliance and, if required, instigate immediate corrective measures, including timely identification of needed technical assistance, information and business services.
A key difference between FBS-MMG and FBS-MC is that in the former the expected outputs are indicated in terms of activity process; in the latter, they are indicated in terms of concrete documentation to be produced and kept in the document portfolio that each FBS group is expected to have (kept either by the CF or MF).

Monitoring checklist
What it is and who uses it. The FBS monitoring checklist (FBS-MC) is a handy tool that helps to check the progress of FBS implementation by session; whether the session has accomplished the target activity(ies) and achieved the expected output(s). It also helps identify specific needs and problems to be addressed. The Core Team and FBS facilitators have diverse and complementing roles in using the checklist.
The CF and the MF should complete the checklist immediately after the completion of the relevant session. It is their role to assess whether activities and outputs are adequately achieved; then suggests means or tools for improvement if needed. Both CF and MF should have their own copy of the FBS-MC the contents of which should correspond and serve as ready reference during monitoring visits by the FBS Core Team members, who have the overall monitoring responsibility. The MF submits a copy of the completed checklist to the MF as required by the management of the implementing organization. Importantly the MF should raise with the Core Team in a timely manner any needs for mentoring, or supplies and materials needed for the effective implementation of activities or sessions.
The MF can refer to the FBS Core Team as needed. The FBS Core Team is in charge of coordinating, monitoring, and mentoring the implementation of the FBS. It consistently interacts with CIP staff to address needs, gaps, and/or opportunities to strengthen the FBS process and mentoring. The MF submits copies of the monitoring checklist to the FBS Core Team, as required by management and on a monthly basis as a minimum. Based on this information and regular field visits, the FBS Core Team will establish and maintain an FBS status database, access to which is granted to CIP staff.
The CF and the MF prepares and keeps the FBS documentation portfolio, which includes all output materials, documents, photos, etc. for each session. These will be inspected together with the FBS-MC during monitoring visits by the Core Team. The whole documentation portfolio should be submitted to the FBS Core Team after the completion of the FBS.
How to use. The monitoring checklist is organized by FBS session. Each session has a set of activities, exercises, and expected outputs. At the end of each session (which may require more than one meeting), CF and MF should complete their own checklists (yellow headers only) by marking (/) when indicated activities were conducted, and outputs available. All the outputs should have supporting evidence, which should be kept in the FBS document portfolio. Furthermore, the MF should look at both the checklist and the documentation portfolio of the FBS group and mark (/) whenever they could verify that the activities and outputs were successfully completed (blue headers). A similar approach is expected to be followed by the FBS Core Team (green header) that, in addition to the ones reported by CF and MF, will also check specific outputs to be produced by the MF. Grey cells indicate that no output is expected from the activity. Finally, the remarks column is available for facilitators to indicate activities and/or outputs not done, incomplete, or replaced; needs and gaps; areas for mentoring; or any other concern.
Session Session