The opening ceremony for "Farmer Field School and Innovative Agricultural Extension in China" was held on April 10 in Caohu, Anhui province and on April 19 in Langfang, Hebei province, respectively. This joint policy research project was initiated by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The objective of the project is to evaluate the Ministry program of Farmer Field School and to examine its impacts on farmers' adoption of farming practices that are beneficiary to the environment and sustainable use of natural resources. The results can be applied to other developing countries with excessive use of agro-chemicals. Farmers' Dairy, the flagship newspaper on agriculture in China, published the ceremony on the front page on April 12. The activity was aired in Hebei Daily on April 20.

The research project was funded by The International Initiative for Impact Evaluations (3ie). The research team consists of researchers in RAND Corporation and several Chinese institutions. The principal investigators are HUANG Jikun  (CCAP) and JIA Xiangping (CCAP), ZHANG Fusuo  (China Agricultural University, CAU),YANG Puyun (National Agro-technical Extension and Service Center, NATESC), Krishna Kumar (RAND), and Nicholas Burger (RAND).