I am finalising a study on the role of the media (print and broadcast) in communicating agric information and below were some of the observations:
~~The success of agricultural development programmes in developing countries largely depends on the nature and extent of use of mass media in the mobilization of people for development Radio and Television have been acclaimed to be the most effective media for diffusing the scientific knowledge to the masses as they transfer modern agricultural technology to farmers in different geographical regions of the country. Mass media methods in agricultural information dissemination generally, are useful in:
• reaching a wide audience at a very fast rate
• they are useful as sources of agricultural information to farmers and as well constitute methods of notifying farmers of new developments and emergencies
• the radio for example, is relatively inexpensive medium to produce for its audience, and therefore enjoys a wide range of diffusion even among rural and less literate people who have access to fewer information resources (community radios in particular, where members are involved in content development)
• the media faces challenges which include lack of subject specialists, language barriers as most of the material is not available in the local languages and has to be translated
Thank you for sharing these findings with us. This sounds very interesting. A bit of context would be useful. What was the location of the agricultural communities you were studying?
Simon WandilaSouthern Africa Telecentre Network / YPARDZambia
Greetings to you all from Zambia. I am delighted to be part of this important forum. Most importantly I wish to express my gratitude to the organisers for allowing young people to contribute a voice to this important event. I look forward to grow my network and improve my knowledge and understanding of this subject.
Communication, Community Media and ICT have the potential to generate relevant content required by family farmers to improve their farming activities and live a meaningful life, among other factors because of their locality and understanding with the community.
An example is the convergence of community radio and public access centre (Telecentres) to provide platforms for family farmers to participate in debate and voice on matters affecting them, as well as, to contribute to discussions on policy matters affecting family farming. An example of this model is a project by PANOS in which they integrated telecentres into community radio stations in Zambia. Read this article for details:
The use of telecentre ICT tools and equipment to generate relevant content to support family farming is revelaged and the content is disseminated through the community radio, and farmers use ICT tools such as radios and mobile phones to suggest content , evaluate content or simply participat in dicussions.
Thank you for sharing this interesting success story with us. I quote from the page :
"To facilitate community participation communities are organised around Radio Listening Clubs(RLCs) and equipped with radio sets, voice recorders and mobile phones. Through RLCs, communities listen to radio programmes,record their perspectives and text or phone in to live radio programmes of agricultural interest. Communities can suggest, using mobile phones, topics for discussion on the radio station . RLCs can also access, using a text messaging facility, the Zambia National Farmers’ Uunion trade information/agro market platform on commodity prices."
Have you been ivolved in the implementation of this project? If so could you tell us a bit more about how these RLCs function? And do you have some concrete examples on how these discussions helped the farmers in their daily activities?
Dear all, it is nice to be here with you, listening to other voices, other experiences, other perspectives, exchanging ideas and views.
I really would like to know something more about the radio listening clubs mentioned before as the FAO-Dimitra team has been working and supporting an approach that might be similar : the Dimitra listeners' clubs. The clubs have been a great support to women and men farmers (including youth) in their farming activities and not only! It is a successful approach that uses ICTs as a means for rural people to get empowered. ICT, technologies, media are great but people need to remain at the centre of the processes. Clearly the sole distribution of ICTs (whatever their type, radios, internet access, phone, etc) is not sufficient to empower people and reduce their rural isolation. Experience in our Dimitra project has shown the importance of participatory methodology that goes in parallel with any kind of “distribution” and takes into account the gender disparities and socio-cultural dynamics of the context, also building on rural people capacities and aspirations.
The Weather Forecasts Department of Senegal (ANACIM) and CCAFS are testing a promising use of mobile phones and community radio to help farmers in basing their critical deisions during the short and erratic raining season on information about the weathe received on time cf. http://ccafs.cgiar.org/blog/bridging-climate-forecasts-farmer-realities-...
Simon WandilaSouthern Africa Telecentre Network / YPARDZambia
I have not been involved in the implementation of this project. I learnt about when a case study was presented by PSAf during the ICT in Agriculture Media Forum co-hosted by Southern Africa Telecentre Network and PSAf . I have contacted the Media and ICT for Development Officer at PSAf to share the full case study and asking him to join this forum.
The project approach has a strategic model which gives a clear picture of how RLC function, since I can upload pictures here to show the model, I have shared the presentation from PSAf on the same. We can download and have a quick view: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4Bb7UqAEU5Bb2VFUlgydk9EdGM/edit?usp=sh...
Hello Everyone. When I think of a family farmer taking information support from ICT tools, I would look at her lifestyle, which is an important criteria to understand how ICT tools can suppport her. If the family is involved in vegetable production, chances are the women in the family is involved in few activities such as seed sowing, fertilizer application, sorting the harvest etc. Another important criteria is how much decision making freedom do they enjoy. If they do enjoy decision making freedom, female farmers look for information on quality seeds, access to finance, disease prevention of crops/livestock etc. All these agri- queries, as well as health related queries can be provided through ICT tools. But more interesting question is, what would motivate a family farmer to use ICT tools to gather that information? Family members, neighbours, local experts are traditional sources of information for family farmers. A recently completed qualitative study revealed that farmers who have utilized ICT tools for information services - only did so when their traditional sources fail to solve the problem at hand. My question to the forum would be, how would you integrate more of ICT usage into the practice of a family farmer's information seeking habit?
I am finalising a study on the role of the media (print and broadcast) in communicating agric information and below were some of the observations:
~~The success of agricultural development programmes in developing countries largely depends on the nature and extent of use of mass media in the mobilization of people for development Radio and Television have been acclaimed to be the most effective media for diffusing the scientific knowledge to the masses as they transfer modern agricultural technology to farmers in different geographical regions of the country. Mass media methods in agricultural information dissemination generally, are useful in:
• reaching a wide audience at a very fast rate
• they are useful as sources of agricultural information to farmers and as well constitute methods of notifying farmers of new developments and emergencies
• the radio for example, is relatively inexpensive medium to produce for its audience, and therefore enjoys a wide range of diffusion even among rural and less literate people who have access to fewer information resources (community radios in particular, where members are involved in content development)
• the media faces challenges which include lack of subject specialists, language barriers as most of the material is not available in the local languages and has to be translated
Thank you for sharing these findings with us. This sounds very interesting. A bit of context would be useful. What was the location of the agricultural communities you were studying?
Greetings to you all from Zambia. I am delighted to be part of this important forum. Most importantly I wish to express my gratitude to the organisers for allowing young people to contribute a voice to this important event. I look forward to grow my network and improve my knowledge and understanding of this subject.
Communication, Community Media and ICT have the potential to generate relevant content required by family farmers to improve their farming activities and live a meaningful life, among other factors because of their locality and understanding with the community.
An example is the convergence of community radio and public access centre (Telecentres) to provide platforms for family farmers to participate in debate and voice on matters affecting them, as well as, to contribute to discussions on policy matters affecting family farming. An example of this model is a project by PANOS in which they integrated telecentres into community radio stations in Zambia. Read this article for details:
http://www.ypard.net/2011-november-3/convergence-radio-and-icts-agricult...
The use of telecentre ICT tools and equipment to generate relevant content to support family farming is revelaged and the content is disseminated through the community radio, and farmers use ICT tools such as radios and mobile phones to suggest content , evaluate content or simply participat in dicussions.
Thank you for sharing this interesting success story with us. I quote from the page :
"To facilitate community participation communities are organised around Radio Listening Clubs(RLCs) and equipped with radio sets, voice recorders and mobile phones. Through RLCs, communities listen to radio programmes,record their perspectives and text or phone in to live radio programmes of agricultural interest. Communities can suggest, using mobile phones, topics for discussion on the radio station . RLCs can also access, using a text messaging facility, the Zambia National Farmers’ Uunion trade information/agro market platform on commodity prices."
Have you been ivolved in the implementation of this project? If so could you tell us a bit more about how these RLCs function? And do you have some concrete examples on how these discussions helped the farmers in their daily activities?
Dear all, it is nice to be here with you, listening to other voices, other experiences, other perspectives, exchanging ideas and views.
I really would like to know something more about the radio listening clubs mentioned before as the FAO-Dimitra team has been working and supporting an approach that might be similar : the Dimitra listeners' clubs. The clubs have been a great support to women and men farmers (including youth) in their farming activities and not only! It is a successful approach that uses ICTs as a means for rural people to get empowered. ICT, technologies, media are great but people need to remain at the centre of the processes. Clearly the sole distribution of ICTs (whatever their type, radios, internet access, phone, etc) is not sufficient to empower people and reduce their rural isolation. Experience in our Dimitra project has shown the importance of participatory methodology that goes in parallel with any kind of “distribution” and takes into account the gender disparities and socio-cultural dynamics of the context, also building on rural people capacities and aspirations.
The Weather Forecasts Department of Senegal (ANACIM) and CCAFS are testing a promising use of mobile phones and community radio to help farmers in basing their critical deisions during the short and erratic raining season on information about the weathe received on time cf. http://ccafs.cgiar.org/blog/bridging-climate-forecasts-farmer-realities-...
Thank you for your post.
Could you tell us a bit more about the participatory methodology that your project uses?
I have not been involved in the implementation of this project. I learnt about when a case study was presented by PSAf during the ICT in Agriculture Media Forum co-hosted by Southern Africa Telecentre Network and PSAf . I have contacted the Media and ICT for Development Officer at PSAf to share the full case study and asking him to join this forum.
The project approach has a strategic model which gives a clear picture of how RLC function, since I can upload pictures here to show the model, I have shared the presentation from PSAf on the same. We can download and have a quick view: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4Bb7UqAEU5Bb2VFUlgydk9EdGM/edit?usp=sh...
Hello Everyone. When I think of a family farmer taking information support from ICT tools, I would look at her lifestyle, which is an important criteria to understand how ICT tools can suppport her. If the family is involved in vegetable production, chances are the women in the family is involved in few activities such as seed sowing, fertilizer application, sorting the harvest etc. Another important criteria is how much decision making freedom do they enjoy. If they do enjoy decision making freedom, female farmers look for information on quality seeds, access to finance, disease prevention of crops/livestock etc. All these agri- queries, as well as health related queries can be provided through ICT tools. But more interesting question is, what would motivate a family farmer to use ICT tools to gather that information? Family members, neighbours, local experts are traditional sources of information for family farmers. A recently completed qualitative study revealed that farmers who have utilized ICT tools for information services - only did so when their traditional sources fail to solve the problem at hand. My question to the forum would be, how would you integrate more of ICT usage into the practice of a family farmer's information seeking habit?
Thank you for you reflection and your question to the forum participants.
Can you share with us the link to the study you are refering to? It sounds interesting!