Video-mediated farmer-to-farmer learning for sustainable agriculture

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sub-Saharan Africa. Although FRI’s website does not host audio files, the radio scripts offer a source of inspiration to develop future video programs (http://www.farmradio.org/english/radio-scripts). WRENmedia established Agfax, a radio service with an emphasis on agricultural science and innovation, now focussing solely on Africa, over 15 years ago. Interviews and features are commissioned from a network of 21 trained and motivated African radio journalists, some of whom have shown interest in becoming bi-media and could be trained to develop video scripts (http://www.agfax.net). CTA’s Publications Distribution Service, along with those offered by WRENmedia and FRI, offer great potential for creating links to the video platform, as well as for physical dissemination of VCDs or DVDs to a large number of rural service providers (http://www.cta.int). FFSNet. The widespread impulse of FFS offers huge potential for both content creation and use of a web-based platform for video sharing. For instance, the Ministry of Agriculture in China is launching a nation-wide initiative to upscale farmer field schools . In each of the 800 counties they will develop local county FFS programs to train extension staff and farmers (http://www.vegetableipmasia.org/News/News33.html). The mFarmer initiative facilitates the creation and scaling up of mobile agricultural solutions to increase the productivity and income of rural small-holders. By 2013 they want two million farmers using the mFarmer Services in India and Sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia). The web-based video platform proposed in the next section will provide content that can be used or adapted for mobile phones (http://gsmworld.com/our-work/mobile_planet/development_fund/mfarmer_initiative_fund.htm). Digital Green in India has a rich source of local language videos that can provide ideas for new quality, scripted videos that are more suitable for regional scaling up and multi-language translations (http://www.digitalgreen.org/analytics/video_module/?geog=country&id=1). ILEIA, the Centre for Learning on sustainable agriculture, is an independent organization that supports the search for sustainable alternatives to conventional high-input agriculture by collecting, analysing and exchanging information on practical experiences of small farmers in the South. ILEIA co-operates with many other organisations in promoting ecologically sound agriculture. Their quarterly Farming Matters magazine has over 60,000 subscribers, with the readership being estimated to be up to 300,000 readers all over the world. Via the magazine physical copies of training videos (or video-related information) could be distributed. 6.4 Challenges The development and use of a global web-based platform for sharing of agricultural training videos faces a number of challenges. 6.4.1 Translating demand into appropriate content Most ICT initiatives have focused more on the tool and less on the content. While technological advancement and falling costs of tele-communication have expanded the availability and access to ICTs, there has been little attention to developing locally relevant content. In most cases, the practice has been to have the tool first and then look for content (Sulaiman et al., 2011b). Video for farmers Agro-Insight, October 2011 page 38
Prioritization has always been complex, especially over large geographical areas. The web-based video platform should prioritize content by looking at the potential use of a video. International organizations, companies and regional farmer organizations know which topics will be of most benefit to their efforts, so rather than spending lots of time and money prioritizing, let videomakers fully engage with on-going and newly planned regional initiatives to decide on needed content. Once this is done, the zooming-in, zooming-out (ZIZO) approach offers a good guide as to how to proceed in order to make regionally relevant and locally appropriate videos (Van Mele, 2006, 2008, 2010). 6.4.2 Risk of videos becoming prescriptive Over the past two decades extension has gone through a major paradigm shift under the influence of the farmer field schools (FFS). Still, mind sets of many scientists and extension service providers continue to be in a prescriptive rather than a collaborative learning mode when working with farmers. This has direct implications to the scalability of training videos. Highly prescriptive recommendations have limited scope for scaling up. If the focus is more on learning about a technology by explaining and visualizing underlying principles of a technology, farmers across countries and continents can more easily apply this in their own context (Van Mele et al., 2010b). This is one of the reasons why the ZIZO method aims at working with scientists, extension workers and farmers who have been engaged in FFS or other ways of collaborative learning. 6.4.3 Limited attention to quality There is a trend among many rural development organizations to go for quantity with almost no attention to quality, triggered by an increased availability of cheap video cameras, mobile phones and still cameras with video options. YouTube and social media have further added a certain level of artificial confidence that ‘anything goes’ and that there are millions of end-users interested in watching whatever is dumped on the web. Although users with fast internet connections and with plenty of time to spend behind a computer (a rare combination in most developing countries) may find things that are of interest, the web pollution with poor quality videos means that for many service providers finding a good video is like looking for a needle in a haystack. [Agricultural training videos should be] well produced. Talking heads do not work. Lots of action and good narration. Put time and money and do it well. Bad ones out there already. Jay Pscheidt, Oregon State University 6.4.4 Producing local language versions Ensuring the quality of the translated programs has been a challenge at first, as there was a disjunction between the national scientists and the media people doing the translation work, i.e. they do not ‘speak’ the same language. Local media people expected to be told what to do, while scientists did not know the process and work needed for a quality product. As local media companies tend to go for the cheapest option and lowest quality (often not taking agriculture Video for farmers Agro-Insight, October 2011 page 39
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Page 3 and 4: 5 Agricultural videos on the intern
Page 5 and 6: Executive summary From June to Sept
Page 7 and 8: 3 Video in agricultural extension 3
Page 9 and 10: complementarity can be built betwee
Page 11 and 12: Disseminating learner-centred video
Page 13 and 14: “Here, we use the audio and video
Page 15 and 16: instance, it has been a 7-year wait
Page 17 and 18: 3.4.9 Special events Farmers in Afr
Page 19 and 20: In Ghana, IITA staff and a group of
Page 21 and 22: Figure 4. The zooming-in, zooming-o
Page 23 and 24: Table 6. Changes in rice parboiling
Page 25 and 26: Table 7. Comparison of various prod
Page 27 and 28: Agro-Insight STCP cocoa Digital Gre
Page 29 and 30: Most people living in rural have tr
Page 31 and 32: “Reason to download is that the s
Page 33 and 34: appropriate technologies in develop
Page 35 and 36: 6 Feasibility of web-based platform
Page 37: and philosophy, the newly proposed
Page 41 and 42: smallholders develop the skills to
Page 43 and 44: Sulaiman, V.R., Kalaivani, N.J., Mi
Page 45 and 46: Q11. How have you used the videos?
Page 47: Annex 2. Websites where on-line sur

Video-mediated farmer-to-farmer learning for sustainable agriculture

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