Green
Innovation Centers for Agriculture and Food Sector (GICAFS) have been set up in
several countries under a special initiative of the Federal German Ministry for
Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to promote innovation in the agricultural
and food sectors in order to combat rural poverty and hunger.

A
major objective of the GICAFS is to provide practical training to young
graduates in agricultural innovations. For this, the graduates from central and
southern Benin, who have been recruited for the GICAFS activities, were trained
in Bohicon, from 13 to 22 February 2017, and those from northern Benin were
trained in Parakou, from 6 to 10 March 2017.
It
was an opportunity for the participants to become thoroughly familiar with the GICAFS
objectives and activities. Presentations and hands-on courses were provided on information
systems (wiki and database); the RUN business model for service provision;
facilitation techniques in rural areas; farmer field school; and innovation
guides relating to rice, soybean, maize, groundnut, poultry and oil palm.
These
new graduates from agricultural schools and high schools are thus trained to
work for eight months with 348 producer groups in the GICAFS project, in
collaboration with 348 school dropouts included in these groups. Their responsibilities,
relating to their respective areas of intervention, include:
- Facilitating question and answer services for the benefit of producers in 173 arrondissements
- Conducting practical training sessions on innovative technologies with the 348 groups
- Conducting surveys
- Sharing information with more than 50,000 producers
- Collecting and exchanging data on prices and rainfall
- Supporting the development of business plans
- Creating a credit system at group level
It is important to highlight that the main objective of the GICAFS is to enable young people to strengthen their practical skills and develop their professional network in order to facilitate their integration into the labor market from the agricultural sector.
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