Promoting Agricultural Development with Video Technology

Readers of this blog are probably familiar with the impressive work of Digital Green, an international NGO which uses pico projectors to disseminate extension messages. Their work started in India and spread quickly to other countries in Africa and elsewhere. Today, they are reaching almost 90,000 farmers with more than 2,000 videos. The impact of their work has attracted the attention of donors and practitioners as we look for ways to improve the intake of extension messages. Governments are also intrigued by the possibilities of equipping extension agents with DG's approach.  In early 2014, the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture held a series of training workshops with extension staff to pilot video-facilitated extension in four regions of the country.

FHI360's Integrating Low-Cost Video into Agricultural Development Projects: A Toolkit for Practitioners, is an excellent resource for those considering the use of video platforms to strengthen behavior change messages. The toolkit allows practitioners to develop a more systematic approach to use low-cost video as one of the mediums through which they share information with farmers.

The toolkit provides the information in six modules, starting with examples on how video technology is currently being used. Besides showcasing the work of Digital Green, the guide also describes the work of InsightShare, One Media Player Per Trainer (OMPT), and Agro-Insight, a Belgium enterprise, also producing professional videos on various agriculture topics. Agro-Insight videos can be streamed at http://www.accessagriculture.org/ or purchased for institutional used.

Although briefly discussed, the guide elaborates on the benefit of multimedia learning, and how a combination of visual and audio inputs increases the effectiveness of your messages (see graph).

The subsequent modules walk practitioners through the process of deciding if video is the right approach, and if so, how to create, disseminate, and track video platforms.  The final module provides excellent information about the technical considerations for camcorders, projectors, and other types of software and hardware needed for these types of projects. 

IFPRI 2013 Global Food Policy Report

​IFPRI just published it flagship report examines the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2013. It puts into perspective the year’s food policy successes and setbacks, and suggests how to advance policies that will improve the food situation for poor people in developing countries.

Chapter 4, Sustainable Agriculture Intensification, is a must read. It reviews the different agronomic such as Conservation Agriculture, Organic Agriculture, and no-till, and provides an assessment on the impact of these practices in the cereals and grain yields. The report also has a series of shorter articles on hot topics, written by the heavy weights of ag. development - Spielman argues that new agronomic practices need more evidence, and Hoddinott reviews the different approaches to safety nets. Enjoy this excellent read!

A New Report on Conditional Cash Transfers in Latin America

For those of you interested in CCT, make sure to check out this report just published by ECLA, the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, on Conditional Cash Transfers in Latin America. 


The report sums up the experience with in Latin America and the Caribbean, over more than 15 years. During this period, CCTs have spread through the region’s various countries as a tool of choice for poverty-reduction policy. CCTs entails the transfer of monetary and nonmonetary resources to families with young children, living in poverty or extreme poverty, on condition that they fulfil specific commitments aimed at improving their human capacities. They are consider just one of many non-contributory social protection instruments in the countries’ poverty reduction toolkits, other can be social pensions, emergency jobs, educational scholarships and subsidies for home purchases etc. 


A couple of interesting points about the report:

• CCT have worked sufficiently well and produced their expected outcomes in large countries with considerable resources at their disposal, such as Brazil and Mexico, but this does not mean that they can be exported to any country and produce the same results
• Viewing the CCTs in terms of entitlement and rights makes it hard to interpret them as instruments of patronage that can be manipulated by different political actors
• CCTs can help to create a “virtuous circle” for poor and vulnerable families. Income transfers, when constant over time, provide a basic safety net for the poor, who by having a guaranteed minimum level of subsistence will have greater opportunities to enter the labor market.

Grains and Leaves: Weekly Ag-Related News, Events, and Others

Agricultural and rural development news and other relevant information: week of September 26th

• World Bank publishes its 2012 World Development Report: Gender Equality and Development, 
• The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, publishes its World Disasters Report 2011- Focus on hunger and malnutrition
• On the Journal Nature, Jason Clay, senior vice-president of market transformation at WWF,  identifies eight steps that, taken together, could enable farming to feed 10 billion people and keep Earth habitable: Freeze the Footprint of Food
• From the Chicago Council on Global Affairs: Bringing Agriculture to the Table :How Agriculture and Food Can Play a Role in Preventing Chronic Disease
• UK's Government: The Future of Food and Farming: Challenges and choices for global sustainability
• Yuan Longping, the  "Father of Hybrid Rice," reports yields of 13.9 tons of rice a hectare on his latest variety, the DH2525
• Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State of the United States & Nick Kristof, moderator and columnist for The New York Times, talk about the central role of women in improving global food security. Similarly, Clinton also announced the allocation of $5 million this year by the US government to promote gender equality in agriculture and land use as part of the Feed the Future Initiative. Video available HERE
• Mark your calendars for the annual Norman E. Borlaug  International Symposium and the World Food Prize Laureate Award Ceremony, Sept 12-14
• How to ensure increasing yields also translate into better nutrition? USAID’s Infant and Young Child Nutrition Project (IYCN) tackles the issues with the development of “nutritional impact assessment tool”
• "To feed more than 9 billion people in 2050, agricultural production will have to double in developing countries. It is time to reinvest in the agricultural sector", says the lastest Communique from the G20's Ministerial Meeting on Development
• An Oxfam briefing paper reports that vulnerable farmers are being pushed to marginal lands as African farm investments expand. Coverage on the issues by NY Times. 
• From the Journal Solutions, A New Approach To Feeding The World, from World Resources Report (WRR). Check out below their chart contrasting today's approach to tomorrows' 

Food Prices

There is so much to say about this subject, but from now, lets see what others are saying. IFPRI, NYT, The Economist, Washington Post, and the Brooking Institution.
Enjoy, comment, criticize, all welcomed

World Development Report 2008; Agriculture for Development

Finally, after decades of diminishing budgets towards agriculture and rural development, Ag Dev is back on the donors' agenda with the seminar publication of World Bank's WDR Agriculture for Development. Last time a WDR had Agriculture as a main topic was back in 1982!. It's hard to tell if the rhetoric will translate into concrete action and funds from the donor community. Yet, one can perceive in the Washingtonian atmosphere the smell of agriculture. Due in part to the discussions on the Farm Bill due before the end of next year, agriculture has been occupying a lot of headlines lately. Lets hope policy makers use the report as a basis their foreign assistance approaches. Mas vale tarde que nunca.



Click on picture to get full PDF, or click HERE to get the reports' official website. See interesting article of the report on NYtimes

Get your copy!!

this will be my nightstand for a while, so stay tuned for some commentary