SASKATOON – There is a farm radio show that originates in Canada and reaches more than 150 million people each month. And it’s not one of the traditional shows.
It’s the Developing Countries Farm Radio Network. The Canadian organization provides agricultural information to 1,200 groups and broadcasters in 110 countries.
Most developing countries have farm broadcasts, but historically information was often not relevant to farmers in those regions or the shows didn’t discuss innovative techniques in agriculture.
But with support from Massey Ferguson and direction from retiring CBC farm broadcaster George Atkins, Developing Countries Farm Radio Network began to provide support and scripts for broadcasters in the Third World.
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Atkins realized the need for better agricultural information in the Third World on a trip to Africa. He met a farm broadcaster who was reporting on the maintenance of tractors even though less than one percent of the farmers in his country owned one.
DCFRN sends out the 12 radio scripts quarterly in English, Spanish and French and they are translated into more than 200 languages for local broadcast. The scripts are free with the agreement that broadcasters will report back on their use.
Topics such as integrated pest management, new crops, soil conservation, animal health, water conservation, women in agriculture, health and nutrition issues and sustainable agricultural practices are common topics. A newsletter, photographs and drawings are provided to help broadcasters translate the scripts into a usable form.
Information in schools
Besides the radio broadcasts, scripts are converted into newspaper articles, classroom lectures, poems, songs, posters, videos, leaflets, plays and puppet shows. The information is often filed in rural libraries and agriculture extension offices.
“Telling subsistence farmers that mixing fine ashes from their cooking fires with their stored grain would keep insects from destroying their supplies was a revelation for thousands of farmers,” said Atkins.
Supporters of DCFRN say it was not so long ago that Canadian farmers were pioneering the Prairies and faced many similar challenges to those farmers throughout the Third World.
In the late 1980s, the company which owned Massey moved its operations to the U.S. leaving the company without a benefactor.
“It was really tough raising any money for these farmers in 1989. Nobody was spending. The economy was down but we survived,” said Elizabeth Wilson, DCFRN executive director.
The Canadian International Development Agency provided matching grants for groups that could raise private funds from the public. Fundraising became part of the focus and today thousands of individual and corporate donors, together with CIDA, provide $430,000 needed to keep scripts flowing to farmers throughout the globe.
“We’re well known to most of the farmers in the world, but not to the ones at home,” said Atkins.
