The Intensified Social Forestry Project in Semi-arid Areas (ISFP) has brought new dimensions in the implementation of farm forestry extension activities in the project area - Tharaka, Mbeere and Kitui districts. The project has facilitated the implementation of farm forestry extension activities in a systematic, enjoyable, farmer group friendly and fairly uniform manner throughout the project area.
The field officers who comprise the District Forest Officers (DFOs) and the Divisional Forestry Extension Officers (DFEOs) of the Forest Department are now more confident in their routine work and the farmer groups are now able to appreciate the role of forestry extension in the betterment of their farming practices. Thanks to the innovativeness of the project implementation team whose quest for an improvement in the extension service delivery has resulted to the adoption and adaptation of the Farmer Field Schools (FFS) extension facilitation process for farm forestry extension work.

All DFEOs, DFOs and key headquarter project officers have received Training of Trainers (ToT) skills and are now ably applying the FFS extension methodology with very encouraging results. FFS is a farmer centered process where farmers are actively involved in participatory technology development (PTD). They test, discover, apply and make decisions with assistance of the extension facilitator (DFEO) on matters that affect their tree/crop activities on the basis of good understanding.

The challenge is to maintain the tempo of the extension activities that ISFP has initiated so that meaningful results can be achieved and subsequently the project purpose, "individual farmers, farmer groups and other stakeholders intensify social forestry practices in semi arid areas".