Category
Schedule
May 29th – June 13th, 2025 *Training period
Country / Member
- Kenya
- Lesotho
- South Africa
- Eswatini
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
- Rwanda
- South Sudan
- Maldives
- Bhutan
Target
For Government Officials and Business Leaders from Developing Countries
Participants
Officials from central government ministries and agencies, or local governments responsible for agricultural guidance/extension (16 participants)
This training course was designed for government officials responsible for agricultural guidance and/or extension in African or Asian countries. Through lectures and on-site visits, participants learned about Japan’s agricultural guidance and extension system as well as its market distribution system. The course aimed to deepen participants’ understanding of the Market-Oriented Agricultural Extension/Promotion approach targeting small-scale farmers (the SHEP Approach*), enabling them to prepare action plans and implement related activities in their own countries based on those plans.
*The Smallholder Horticulture Empowerment and Promotion (SHEP) Approach was developed under a technical cooperation project that started in 2006 between the Ministry of Agriculture (currently known as the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development) of Kenya and JICA to support small-scale horticultural farmers. This approach aims to change the mindset of vegetable and fruit producers from “looking for buyers after production” to “producing marketable products.” It also seeks to improve their farming and cultivation skills, enabling them to increase their horticultural income.
Please refer to the following link for details.
https://www.jica.go.jp/activities/issues/agricul/shep/index.html
Schedule
May 29th – June 13th, 2025 *Training period
Course Leader
Junichi Ito (Associate Expert, JICA Economic Development Dept.)
Client Organization
JICA Kansai
SDGs
Persons in Charge
Kimura, Funami
Instructor / Visited sites
JICA Project Specialists, JICA International Cooperation Specialists , etc. (15 lecturers/locations visited)
Launching the SHEP Approach in One’s Home Country
Visiting a farm
Group workshop
Action plan presentation
In this training course, officials responsible for SHEP Approach projects and those in charge of agriculture and livestock in their respective countries participated.
To promote understanding of the concept of the SHEP Approach, the course was designed to include not only lectures but also video-based training materials, exercises, on-site visits to related facilities, and discussions, enabling participants to gain a deeper understanding.
A presentation session on the “Agricultural Extension System Structure of Participants’ Home Countries” was conducted. Through lectures by relevant stakeholders, participants deepened their understanding of “Japan’s agricultural extension system and its support mechanisms”. Participants also visited the Agricultural Improvement Promotion Center in Hyogo Prefecture, where they gained practical insights into approaches to addressing local agricultural challenges by listening directly to specialists. In addition, through visits to relevant stakeholders as well as lectures and talks by farmers, participants learned about the roles of government administration, agricultural cooperatives, and wholesale markets, along with farmer support methods and systems for agricultural promotion in Japan, helping them understand both theoretically and experientially how Japan’s local agriculture is structured and operates.
During the final week of the course, exercises were conducted with specialists from the SHEP Project. Participants learned from real case studies based on the specialists’ overseas experience, including successful examples and the challenges that were overcome. Through group workshops, participants further developed their management skills as officers in charge.
The training course in Japan concluded successfully with each participant presenting an action plan for implementing the SHEP Approach in their own country after returning to their home country. We look forward to the progress review meeting in six months’ time.
