Farmer Business School (FBS) is an approach developed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) with support from the  Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Cocoa Foundation with the aim to promote entrepreneurship and business skills of smallholder farmers. The approach builds on experiential learning and targets a mind-set change of farmers to recognise themselves as entrepreneurs and investors.

These are crucial prerequisites for adoption of improved techniques, use of market opportunities and investments in agricultural production and consequently improved productivity and quality, diversified family income and nutrition. FBS triggers individual and group demand for services and inputs. Embedded and combined with related measures and services the FBS approach is recognised as an integrated cost-effective intervention.

This handbook aims to support successful introduction, implementation, quality management and sustainable anchoring of the FBS approach by projects, partners and for various value chains.

It combines long-term experience, tools and lessons-learnt for FBS practitioners as well as newcomers along the following areas:

• Context assessment concerning production systems, value chains, resources and partner structures

• Selection of lead and complementary products, the definition of target group, target outreach and required FBS trainers

• Analysis of cost and benefits of traditional and improved techniques of selected lead and complementary products with standardised spreadsheets

• Adaption of training materials

• Capacity building, including selection and training of trainers.

• Financing models

• Implementation and management of FBS

• Planning, evaluation and monitoring.