Rice Rural Learning Initiative

By linking video with mass media, especially radio, the initiative works to stimulate local adaptation of innovations, nurture local ownership, and build on existing capacities and networks. The project started in 2005, when AfricaRice, in collaboration with the United Kingdom (UK)-based Countrywise Communication, trained a team in Benin to produce farmer-to-farmer videos. In 2007, AfricaRice collaborated with Farm Radio International and local partners to produce rural radio scripts, which, as well as talking about rice, advertised video distribution points. By 2009, 25 radio and video programmes had been produced. Canada-based Farm Radio International distributed radio scripts on rice technologies to more than 300 rural radio stations across Africa and monitored their use. The radio programmes were translated into more than 40 local languages. AfricaRice also distributed the videos to 164 partners, who in turn shared them with over 300 local organisations. Partners also translated the 11 videos into 33 local languages, covering 44 countries.

Organisers say that the two media, radio and video, were combined to strengthen local experimentation around new ideas, methods, and technologies. Rice radio programmes facilitated learning and increased awareness amongst farmers and service providers about the farmer-to-farmer videos. According to organisers, the videos helped train more than 2,500 trainers and benefited more than 130,000 rice farmers and processors across Africa. The radio programmes' potential audience constituted millions of farmers. Community screenings helped to build human and social capital; in particular, women became more organised and requested further support from local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in enterprise development and enhancing market integration.

The Rice Rural Learning Initiative continues to work with new partners across Africa, with each country and each partner adopting a different communication strategy depending on their own institutional context.

• In Guinea, the NGO Association pour la Promotion Economique de Kindia (APEK) trained thousands of farmers using the videos before reinforcing the lessons through Radio Guinée Maritime, which aired interviews with farmers about what they had learned. The resulting radio programme reached up to 800,000 people.
• To revive agriculture in war-torn villages in northern Uganda, the Agricultural Productivity Enhancement Programme showed the videos to more than 7,000 farmers living in refugee camps. In addition, Sasakawa Global 2000 distributed local-language copies to extension (training, education, and technology dissemination) services and farmer associations, and engaged policymakers, a TV station, and Farmers' Media newspaper.
• In Benin, mobile cinema vans reached more than 50,000 farmers. Interactive programmes on rural radios and a question-and-answer service helped promote the videos and obtain audience feedback.
• In Nigeria, the government developed 500 video copies in each of the Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo languages and incorporated them in the agricultural development programmes of all the states.
• In various countries, farmer organisations received the local language versions of the videos via their respective networks and started to organise their own screenings.
• In the Gambia, Guinea, Nigeria, and Uganda, the rice videos are being broadcast on the respective national television stations.

Click here to watch the rice videos, which were produced in close collaboration with researchers, field workers, rice farmers, and rice processors.

Agriculture, Natural Resource Management

To assess the videos' impact, 200 women rice processors were surveyed in Benin. After watching a video on parboiling rice, over 90% cleaned and dried their rice properly (compared with 20% in a group who did not watch the video), and 42% adopted improved rice parboiling (compared with 5% in the non-video group). Not only did rice quality improve, allowing the women to obtain a higher price, but they also learned to work better as a group and developed skills and confidence to negotiate with rice producers and traders.

According to AfricaRice, the Rice Rural learning Initiative has mobilised a vast network of local actors to the benefit of African rural communities, and is set to continue this initiative in the years to come. In order to reach more rural people, AfricaRice is also exploring partnerships with the private sector for disseminating the rice videos.