Farm Talk Radio Educates Farmers in Zambia

Recently our American graduate student intern and project coordinator, Elyse, returned from working with our Zambian partner, Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO).  For 3 months Elyse worked with Farm Talk radio producers, Filius and Ndabile, to provide small-scale farmers with critical information on sustainable conservation farming in their own language.  Broadcast on the local station Breeze FM, Farm Talk (COMACO’s in-house radio program) reaches around 800,000 people weekly with information on how they can grow healthy harvests, practice conservation farming techniques and feed their families year-around. Farm Talk is also heard across the border in Malawi.

Elyse visited many farming families and witnessed Farm Talk’s popularity first-hand. Even non-registered COMACO farmers tune in.  So trusted is the information, farmers are now joining COMACO farmer cooperatives in record numbers.  Farm Talk allows isolated farmers to learn, without having to leave their families and stop working to feed their families It also creates a stronger community-based approach since farmers listen in groups, many of which use our Prime radios and now Lifeplayer MP3s.  When the hour-long program is over, farmers discuss what they learned.  

For example, one women’s group has used what they learned on Farm Talk to innovate their own farming methods, such as a new way to make compost, to further relieve the burden of heavy physical labor.  Another is growing spices and herbs to dry and sell. Filius says this is the first time he has seen farmers take it upon themselves to be innovative and to collaborate.

As part of COMACO's ongoing commitment to farmer education, it has created a farmer executive training course which is downloaded onto our Lifeplayer MP3.  This training course is educating community and cooperative leaders on leadership and good governance, conservation of the eco-systems, and agriculture and income-generating Activities.  Elyse helped to develop the content and train leaders on how to best use and care for the Lifeplayer.  The course is going strong and has proven to be so popular that farmers are asking for more listening groups. 

Volunteer Lead Farmers are now traveling around the Luangwa Valley with their Lifeplayer, so more people can access the content. The Lifeplayer is also reaching those communities that do not receive radio signal.  When her group was given a Lifeplayer, one woman said she was happy because now she wouldn’t be left behind.  She knew the COMACO information worked and would help her family.  Without the radio signal reaching her village, they had no way to follow Farm Talk.  The media player feature solves this problem

Lifeline is deeply proud to see how our radio and MP3 are helping farmers grow and become food secure through the information they learn.  In a region where malnutrition is alarmingly high, this information can be the difference between thriving and barely surviving. Your support will help us to continue to reach more farmers in isolated areas who are often left behind. 

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Last week we again met our Zambian partner Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO), and a number of farming listening groups. COMACO’s local popular radio program, Farm Talk, forms an integral part of educating farmers to farm sustainably and conserve the precious environment in which they live. These farmers, who are mostly women, have used our radios for more than three years. We were delighted to see how important the radios are to the listening groups, which average 70% women.  It’s not only hearing the radio programmes that the groups enjoy; it is also the way they’re able to listen together and discuss what they have heard. Only about 10% of the farmers we met had a radio at home and maybe 20% owned a mobile phone. Some had radio capability on their mobile phones, but all farmers wanted to listen as a group and not on their own.  

In one village, not far from the border with Malawi, it seemed as though the entire village turned out to meet us, including the village headman in his traditional dress!

We timed this visit around our American University of Paris intern and project coordinator, Elyse, who has been seconded to COMACO for a few months. She’s now with COMACO on a variety of assignments, including gathering and editing radio content, to develop an executive education program for lead farmers. Elyse is thoroughly enjoying working with the COMACO team and says, “I’m so impressed with both Zambia and COMACO. The farmers I have talked to all testify to how COMACO has changed their lives. A women’s group even created a dance about them. There is much spirit here! I’m proud to be a part of the Lifeline Energy-COMACO collaboration because together they are touching the lives of hundreds of thousands of people through information.”

Each time we visit Zambia, and spend time talking with rural women, we come away doubly inspired to support more listening groups. The majority of farmers are women and the Eastern Province of Zambia has the country’s highest illiteracy for women, along with the highest rate of teen pregnancy.  Providing learning opportunities to listen to farming programs to help increase yields and thus incomes, reduce use of pesticides, conserve wildlife and their fragile environment makes the most enormous difference in the lives of these women.  Your support helps us continue our work.