1. ACCESS AGRICULTURE OFFERS AFRICA ITS
FIRST FARMER VIDEO-AUDIO WEBSITE
Florent Okry (PhD)
Regional coordinator West and Central Africa
Access Agriculture
florent@accessagriculture.org
www.accessagriculture.org
Atelier de formation des facilitateurs du processus « User Led Process »
10 -12 janvier 2013 à l’hôtel Merina, Yaoundé, Cameroun

2. Introduction
• Agricultural advisory services in developing countries face
many challenges, one of which is to respond meaningfully to
farmers’ diverse demands for advice on
crop, livestock, fish, processing, business, finance and
marketing issues.
With limited resources advisors struggle to reach the millions
of farmers.
• Across countries, research
institutes, universities, NGOs, extension
services, companies, radio stations and farmer-based
organisations are going to considerable efforts to find or
develop suitable training materials for their staff and the
farmers with whom they work.

3. • Video-mediated learning has gained importance across Africa:
Good quality videos merge theoretical notions contained in
books, booklets, research notes with farmers’ knowledge and
practices by having farmers show and explain how the
technology works
• Access Agriculture aims to promote video-mediated learning

4. What is AA?
Access Agriculture
is an international NGO that encourages the use of training
videos to help farmers improve their profits.
serves as an independent global broker, showing which videos
are available, in which subjects and in which languages.
offers a platform for agricultural R&D staff, service
providers, extension agents, communication professionals and
representatives of farmer organisations to see what training
videos are available and request new language versions.

5. We achieve this through continuous investment in expanding
and strengthening our professional network: we welcome the
opportunity to interact with AIF regional platform
To develop local language versions, mass multiply and
disseminate agricultural training videos, we collaborate with
more than 200 communication professionals across the globe

6. What do we offer?
The FIRST AFRICAN FARMER VIDEO-AUDIO WEBSITE
Established with the support of: Agro-Insight, Countrywise
Communication, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
and Streaming Tank
Enable farmers to share experiences on a wide range of agricultural
issues e.g. crop production and processing, sustainable land
management and business skills.
Offer multiple languages videos and audio to Agricultural R&D
staff, service providers, extension agents, communication
professionals, representatives of farmer organisations, universities and
so on
Encourage organizations to place their training videos on the website
for large dissemination

7. Let’s pay a visit to
www.accessagriculture.org

8. Indication on use
Videos hosted on the Access Agriculture website have been:
• Translated into more than 40 national and local languages
• Disseminated across Africa and South Asia
(more than 45,000 VCDs & DVDs)
• Watched by farmers in Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina
Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, DR
Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Kenya, Madag
ascar, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra
Leone, Tanzania, Togo and Uganda (24 countries).

9. Use of videos on AA website by TV stations
English, French or national language versions broadcasted in:
Burundi : Télévision Nationale du Burundi
Central African Republic : Télévision Centrafricaine
DR Congo : Community television of Kinzau-Mvuete
Gambia : GRTV
Guinea : RTG
Nepal : NTV
Niger : Canal3 in Malanville
Nigeria : Nigerian Television Authority (federal ) and
Broadcasting Service of Ekiti State
Uganda : UBC

10. Use of videos by radio stations
(hands-off experiment in Benin)

11. Name of % VCD Method of awareness raising Mode of VCD distribution
radio distributed
Alaketu 94 Announcement Sales: 6
(n = 150) Gift: 135 (120 to FA, 10 to farmers and 5 to staff)
Tonassé 92 Announcement Sales: 5
(Covè) (n = 120) Gift: 105 to winners of quizzes on agriculture and
to individual farmers
Ilèma 64 Announcement Sales: 0
(Dassa) (n = 120) Gift: 77 (farmers, farmer associations and NGOs)
Collines FM 100 Advertisements in three Sales: 150
(Glazoué) (n = 240) languages at least three times a Gift: 90 to winners of quizzes and to individual
day. farmers who requested copies after they
participated in quiz
Mono FM 0 No action taken Na
(Comé) (n = 40)
FM Kouffè 100 Announcement Sales: 6 ; Gift: 14 (farmer associations and
(Bassila) (n = 20) individual farmers)
Solidarité 100 Transferred VCD to the chairman Sales: 0
FM (n = 20) of the federation of the farmer Gift: 20 (CeCPA, NGO, farmers and farmer
(Djougou) associations of Djougou association)
Radio 100 Chairman federation of FA sold Sales: 30
Ouaké (n = 100) most of them Gift: 70
Radio 100 Announcement Sales: 0
Tanguiéta (n = 100) President of one farmer group Gift: 100
(Tanguiéta) collected a copy. Radio staff

12. Feedback from users (1)
• “It is now easy, with these videos, to talk about rice cultivation
to farmers, even to the most experienced ones. They welcome
me when I visit them and I now feel more appreciated, likely
because now I am less theoretical. I can confidently repeat
what I have seen in the video in their field”. Gnancadja
A., extension agent, Benin
• These images give us the visible answer to all information that
we have heard and discussed during the farmer field school
meetings. The DVD “Fighting Striga” needs to be shown in all
those villages that have not attended the FFS activities, so
that they also can see the different methods for controlling
Striga.” Youssou Arama, Farmer Trainer, Thien-
Doucourani, Mopti region, Mali

13. Feedback from users (2)
• “We learned how to grow our rice, all the agronomic
practices, and had a big difference. Like one day, Sylvia called
us and invited us to view a video. It helped us a lot. The first
thing it helped us to sort out seed, to know what kind to
plant, and it showed us how to dry our rice. The video
changed a lot of our lifestyle. When I talk about drying
rice, we used to put the rice on the ground and it mixed with
stones and this was reducing the quality of the rice, because it
would be mixed with cow dung and stones and chickens would
play in it.” Saalongo Nsereko John, Namulonge, Uganda.

14. Our leading project: Video for Farmers
• Funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
• From 2013-2018, split in two phases and starting in Africa
• Coverage Area: Africa and Asia
• In Africa: Benin, Egypt, Kenya, Malawi, Mali and Uganda
• In each country: NGOs, farmer organisations, research and
extension institutes, universities

15. Specific activities
• Partners (12) in video production (3 years)
– Budget and Video production kit
– Training workshops in video production
– Technical support in script research, script writing
development, filming and editing (3 years)
– Video production (2 videos / partner organisation / year)

16. • Partnering universities (6+)
Research areas: the organizational, institutional and economic
impacts of videos use; the institutional or cultural barriers to the
development of video-mediated learning; social inclusion etc.
– 2-3 master theses/university/per year (5 years)
– 1 PhD thesis/university (5 years)

17. Enquiries and visits
info@accessagriculture.org
Headquarter: Apartment B2, Tausi Apartments, Lantana Road, Westlands
P.O. Box 66158 – 00800 Westlands
Tel: +254 20 2108300
Nairobi, Kenya
Contact pers. Mukumu Bob Muchina (Executive Secretary);
E-mail: muchina@accessagriculture.org
Regional office West and Central Africa:
Maison Sacca Boco Charles I. , Arconville, Abomey Calavi
Tel: 00229 94109582
041 BP 13, Cotonou, Benin
Contact pers. Florent Okry E-mail: Florent@accessagriculture.org

18. Thank you
Merci