The USAID Food and Enterprise Development (FED) Liberia program is in hopes that 28 community journalists and 14 radio stations are the start of a new agricultural revolution that will equip rural farmers in Liberia with essential knowledge and resourceful tools.
Along with the state government, USAID FED’s Feed the Future initiative works to elevate the country’s agricultural stance. Now, in an effort to bridge the informational disconnect that rural farmers experience — due to a lack of technology, agriculture production and energy access — the rural radio program will launch distinguished agribusiness broadcasts to help them along.
The program, which began with the journalists’ 10-day training, is “expected to run well into 2014,” according to USAID FED Liberia chief of party Agnes Luz.
“The programming is slowly taking off. Each station runs its 30 minute program twice a week. USAID FED plans to conduct listener and radio follow ups in the coming months.
Journalists are free to cover all aspects of agriculture. But, all technical messages are linked to the concept of “farming as a business,” developing a consciousness of going beyond subsistence and treating farming as a commercial endeavor,” Luz told AFKInsider via e-mail.
“Broadcasts on planting calendar are linked to understanding the law of supply and demand, and what the markets are looking for at specific times of the year. Promotion of mechanized services (e.g., use of power tiller and threshers) will be linked to the concept of cost to benefit,” she said.
Marketing crops and agricultural products will be pushed in broadcasts through encouraging farmers to maintain proper price information, as well as the contact info of the appropriate processors, aggregators and buyers, Luz explained.
Agro-input suppliers and agro-services providers are also essential to farmers’ business growth as measured production is tied into accessing loans and registering a business — topics the radio program will also cover.
“In the past, we didn’t think much about farmers as listeners. The radio is one way to make them see farming as a business and not just for survival. We can share a lot of useful information with them,” Chester Dolo, a citizen journalist at Ganta’s Kergheamahan Radio station said in a USAID press release. “Liberians spend $200 million every year on importing rice. We journalists can create awareness towards growing our own rice for consumption.”
With a population of only 4.2 million, USAID FED’s Feed the Future initiative in Liberia is the largest in the world as the country’s agriculture sector is severely lacking in overall competitiveness.
According to Luz, 60 percent of Liberia’s rice is imported. Even worse, inadequate export infrastructure fails to leverage high costs of fees that fall on farmers.
This is why in addition to disseminating information to farmers through the radio program, USAID FED Liberia is prioritizing the establishment of agricultural value chains related to the production and commercialization of rice, cassava, vegetables and goats. The campaign sets out to slash the number of imported goats per year, (16,000), by improving the offspring survival rate of goats from 50 percent to 90 percent.
“It is our hope to demonstrate a way to compete with imports through improved productivity of farms, and overall improved profitability of the value chains that FED works with. We hope to see thousands of hectares of upland rice farms producing 1.2 MT of rice on the average, which is 100 percent more than the traditional average yield,” Luz added.
After the civil war, much of Liberia’s arable lowlands were left deserted although the potential to cultivate them had not been diminished.
The rural radio program aims to get farmers who’ve been out of touch with the latest and best techniques excited about taking over their land and participating in aspects of production that will ultimately sharpen their business approach and longevity. Some of the participating journalists have already made it clear that they are committed to continuing and growing their individual radio programming.
“Journalists were eager to take advantage of future training opportunities. Most wanted to learn more production techniques — most also wanted to achieve a greater understanding of agriculture from a technical perspective; as well as how to better report on agriculture-related topics in their communities,” Moses Browne, USAID FED Liberia enterprise development radio specialist told AFKInsider.
“Many were interested in developing formal farm radio programs. Journalists were also interested in training related to sales and advertising for their stations. The ideal initial training format incorporated a blend of technical agricultural modules, production skills and special topical areas related to agriculture. Training sessions were practical, interactive and in-depth in order to impart significant skills to professional journalists,” he said.
Browne was one of two USAID FED Liberia radio specialists who in conjunction with two Liberian media professionals conducted the trainings. Initially, 32 journalists from Margibi, Bong, Bassa, Nimba, Montsserrado and Lofa Counties were to host programs — only 28 journalists from five counties showed up to complete the training.
Though the radio programming and farming resources haven’t reached this point, Browne says that journalists have suggested creating broadcasts that push the implementation of ICT access, media and agriculture stakeholder engagement, booklets which outline radio programming techniques and topics, in addition to USAID FED Liberia value chain initiative integration.
Drilling in news gathering tools, interactive radio and equipment training, USAID FED Liberia radio specialists brought the journalists up to standard through a structured education module centered on topics such as “75 ways to fix your radio program,” “Market Information Services in Farm Radio,” and “Interactive Farm Radio Production,” Browne said.
“Before USAID FED there was another USAID project called the Civil Society and Media Leadership program that worked to make community radio stations more functional, meaning they donated equipment as well as developed skills,” Luz added. “Now USAID FED is building on that project’s work to expand the scope of community journalism to actually bring information benefits to farmers in rural areas whose principle form of communication and information is through the local radio.”
USAID FED Liberia will encourage food security and the business growth of value chain commercialization through working with “input suppliers to establish agro-input dealers in rural areas,” Luz concluded. Aside from localization — creating opportunities for private sector investors to share cold chain, improved cultivation technology and warehouse costs among others is a priority.
Of course growing in this endeavor requires solid work in radio journalism — and successful receipt of that information by the farmers who need it most.
“The more agriculture reporting becomes part of day to day journalism, the more linkages will be created within the sector. Information is a small element of the value chain, albeit an important one.”