Soul Beat Africa

• * PROJECTS - Advocacy campaigns to increase and improve farming in Africa...
• * RESEARCH REPORTS - ICTS and reality TV shows to get young people involved...
• * RESOURCES - Communication for Rural Development Sourcebook...

• 1. Do Agric, It Pays Campaign - AfricaLaunched in January 2014, the Do Agric, It Pays campaign calls on African governments to fulfil a 2003 African Union commitment to spending at least 10% of national budgets on effective agriculture investments. The campaign is using music, celebrity ambassadors, comic strips, and an online petition to "push political leaders to adopt better policies that will boost productivity, increase incomes, and help lift millions of Africans out of extreme poverty." The campaign is being led by ONE, an international campaigning and advocacy organisation, in collaboration with a wide range of partners.
  
  
• 2. Communication and Family Farming Radio Campaign - GlobalIn January 2014, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations launched an awareness campaign to highlight 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF). Focusing on farmers' organisations and the rural population, the campaign is using community radio as a platform to share information with the farming community and involve them further in discussions regarding the key role family farming plays in economic and social development. The initiative includes a series of radio programmes produced alongside consultations, policy dialogues, and events organised by FAO and AMARC in different regions.
  
  
• 3. Yenkasa AfricaYenkasa Africa is a regional platform designed to document experiences and enhance knowledge sharing in communication applied to agriculture and rural development. Yenkasa, which means "Let's Talk" in the Akan dialect of Ghana, supports communication, development, and community media practitioners based in Africa to share experiences and knowledge resources on rural communication for development, enhance capacities and establish fruitful collaborations at regional and country level, promote a regional agenda, and advocate for communication in the rural sector. The project is led by FAO and AMARC and forms part of the Communication and Family Farming Radio Campaign.
  
  
• 4. Cocoa Farmers Livelihood Project - Sierra LeoneLaunched by BBC Media Action in 2011, the Cocoa Farmers Livelihood Project is working to build farmers' skills, increase the quality and amount of cocoa they produce, and encourage more people to take up farming to support themselves and their families. Combining radio drama and talk shows, community work, and distance learning, the project intends to reach 140,000 current and potential cocoa farmers in Eastern Sierra Leone.
  
  
• 5. Beep4Weather Radio and Mobile Phone Service - Tanzania"Utabiri wa hali ya hewa" (Swahili for "Beep for Weather") is a radio and mobile phone service designed to enable farmers to receive important weather and agricultural information on their mobile phones. The farmers call into a radio station and promptly hang up (known as a beep), then receive a return call, free of charge, to listen to a recorded message. Launched in December 2013, the service was developed by Farm Radio International and their radio and information, communication and technology (ICT) innovation lab, The Hangar, and was piloted in the Kilimajaro, Arusha, and Manyara Regions of Tanzania.
  
  

• 6. ICT4D Effects: Youth, ICTs and Agriculture: Exploring How Digital Tools and Skills Influence the Motivation of Young Farmers [November, 2013]Published by the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), this report shares insights gained from three projects implemented under the Connect4Change (C4C) Economic Development programme located in western Kenya, which deal with the links between the introduction and use of ICT in farming and the interest of youth in farming and value chain development. It was found that ICTs can enhance access to market information, production techniques, new technologies, and financing opportunities, which can help encourage young people's uptake of farming as a career.
  
  
• 7. Extending the Learning Community: Rural Radio, Social Learning and Farm Productivity [April, 2012]By Olumide Taiwo and Emmanuel AsmahThis paper examines the potential role of rural FM radio stations in facilitating indigenous agricultural knowledge sharing in Ghana. According to the paper, agricultural productivity remains a crucial factor in poverty reduction and rural transformation in Africa. Recent developments in communication and socialisation infrastructure have extended the sphere of social learning beyond village borders. In the Ghanaian context, the rural radio phenomenon has successfully moved the borders of social learning from the village to the range of radio broadcasts. This paper attempts to evaluate the impact of social learning through rural radio on crop yields in Ghana.
  
  
• 8. Ruka Juu II: Young Farmers in Business: Impact Study [December, 2013]This report shares findings of an evaluation of "Ruka Juu - Young Farmers in Business", season two of a reality competition television show produced by Femina Hip in Tanzania. Ruka Juu means 'Jump Up', and the aim of the show is to see young people 'Jump Up' and take charge of their lives and futures through sustainable livelihoods in small business and agriculture. The evaluation of the TV show found that the contestants became role models who inspired other youth to engage in farming as a business. The contestants themselves also formed groups in their local communities to share the skills and knowledge they had gained through participation in Ruka Juu.
  
  
• 9. Participatory Video with Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa: Programme Report [December, 2012]By Sara Asadullah This programme report shares the experience of using participatory video with farmers in six sub-Saharan countries - Angola, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, and Uganda. Five United Kingdom (UK)-based development agencies partnered with local organisations to use participatory video to engage with farmers around climate change impacts and other issues affecting agricultural production. This report, published by Insightshare, presents an overview of the video projects and offers conclusions and recommendations from the experiences.
  
  
• 10. Good information Is In Short Supply: Kenyan Farmers and Their Assessment of Information on Agricultural Innovation [August, 2013]By Christoph SpurkThis report discusses information-seeking behaviours of small-scale farming households in Kenya. The research project focused on how farmers are informed about innovation regarding new methods of increasing agricultural productivity, which is one of the main challenges for Africa's agriculture and its rural population. Based on findings, the authors recommend developing new concepts for communication with farmers where radio plays the central role, and with critical journalists who can engage with extension officers and researchers. A media mix around radio can then complement the different information needs of farmers.
  
  
• 11. Capturing the Gender Effect: Guidance for Gender Measurement in Agriculture Programs [2013]By Anjala Kanesathasan, Adithi Shetty, Krista Jacobs, and Margo YoungPublished by ReliefWeb, this technical brief produced for the Tanzania Gender and Agriculture Forum (TaGAF), draws on the experiences of two projects in Mbeya, Tanzania focusing on the steps they have taken to measure the 'gender effect.' According to the authors, over the past decade there has been growing recognition of the contribution that women make to agricultural production around the world. Despite this attention, many agricultural programmes struggle to capture the difference - or the 'gender effect' - that gender integration makes on key outputs and outcomes.
  
  
• 12. Video As a Tool for Agricultural Extension in Africa: A Case study from Ghana [2011]By Soniia David and Christopher AsamoahThis paper explores the effectiveness of video viewing clubs (VVCs) as a training method based on a formal survey of 32 Ghanaian women farmers who were trained on cocoa integrated crop and pest management (ICPM) using this method. Results suggest that the video viewing club is effective as a relatively low cost, interactive training method for providing low literacy populations with skills, information, and knowledge on complex technical topics.
  
  

• 13. Communication for Rural Development Sourcebook [2014]By Mario Acunzo, Marzia Pafumi, Cleofe Torres, and Maria Stella TirolThis sourcebook is meant to equip development and communication professionals with a set of guidelines, illustrative experiences, reference materials, and learning tools to strategically apply communication in agriculture and rural development initiatives in various contexts around the world.
  
  
• 14. African Farmer: Online GameLaunched in April 2014 by Future Agricultures and the University of Sussex, African Farmer is a free, open source online game that "simulates the complex decisions and uncertainties faced by small-scale farmers living in Sub-Saharan Africa." It is designed to engage students, development practitioners, and anyone interested in the challenges faced by farmers in economically poor countries.
  
  
• 15. Land Rush: How do you feed the world? - VideoThis one-hour documentary is part of a series of documentaries that form part of the Why Poverty? campaign. Land Rush looks at the threat posed on traditional, subsistence farmers by large agribusiness from rich, developed countries.
  
  

• See this previous e-newsletter related to agriculture:The Soul Beat 226 - Communication and Media for Agriculture