The Smallholder Horticulture Empowerment & Promotion (SHEP) approach

29 June 2023. Smallholder Horticulture Empowerment & Promotion (SHEP) approach.

• The Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS), in collaboration with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), 
• SHEP is an innovative approach to agricultural extension services that is anchored on the disciplines of economics and psychology and which has been effective in raising smallholder farmers' income from horticulture as it develops both the technical and managerial capacity of farmers to practice market-oriented farming. 
• experiences from the ground, to get information on the upcoming SHEP online trainings for Africa and Asia.

Resource:

JICA (2018) SHEP Handbook for Extension Staff. # 98 p.

The SHEP approach that successfully transforms farmers’ mindsets from “grow and sell” to “grow to sell”　was developed based on numerous insights acquired from agricultural extension in Japan. This material introduces the voices of farmers and extension officers who are actually implementing the SHEP approach in their countries. 

At the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VII) held in 2019, "declaration for achieving better lives of one million small scale farmers through SHEP Approach" was made. In order to achieve this by 2030, the SHEP approach for agricultural extension services collaborations with various organizations, such as donor partners and NGOs, have been accelerated. Since SHEP implementers are trained mainly through Group and Region-Focused Training, this material was created to promote the training remotely without face-to-face lectures by conveying the key points of the training in this material. 

The “practice version” together with another video titled "The SHEP Approach Training Digest" made in 2020 to deepen further understanding of the SHEP approach.

Introductory training organized by JICA and GFRAS on August 24th 2021