Farm Radio International

Managing Editor Visits Cameroon
Canadian Managing Editor of Farm Radio International, Douglas Bruce (Vijay Cuddeford) undertakes a 3-week long working visit in Cameroon from November 19. The visit aims at strengthening partnership with local community radio stations involved in the promotion of farming and livestock rearing through broadcasting.
Apart from visiting radio stations, Douglas Bruce will discuss collaborative training for radio organisations and broadcasters on a variety of issues with knowledge organisations in Cameroon. He will be visiting community radio stations in the Littoral, South west, West, North West, Centre and South regions of Cameroon took collect information on their training needs and possibilities of exchanging broadcast programme packs and scripts.
Farm Radio International started as Developing Countries Farm Radio Network in 1979. It is celebrating the 30th Anniversary of collaboration with Community Radio stations throughout Africa this year. FRI is continuing its role of helping millions of African farmers through the airwaves from Ottawa, Canada.
Farm radio International is supported by the Canadian government through the Canadian International Development Agency, CIDA. When Canadian journalist, George Atkins, first visited Africa in the 1970s, he found that Africa’s farmers weren’t short of good ideas appropriate to their circumstances, but distance, language and limited literacy often prevented them from sharing these ideas with each other.
The ideas being shared at the time were those from the developed economies — the result of farm extension efforts aimed at Africa which tended to focus on using inappropriate or unaffordable machinery, chemicals or fertilizer.
Atkins, a farm broadcaster at Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, Toronto, had been part of the success in delivering practical extension information to farmers in post-war Canada. When he returned from his visit to Africa, he resolved to launch a second career doing the same for farmers in Africa in a way that would solve the idea-sharing problem. The Developing Countries Farm Radio Network was born in a small office in Toronto.
On May 1, 1979 the first script package was sent. In 2009, approximately 900 radio scripts have been circulated under the organisation’s new name “Farm Radio International”. Atkins’s brainchild celebrates its 30th anniversary of successfully reaching farmers through the radio, which remains the cheapest and most reliable medium in the developing.
Now based in Ottawa with a staff of 10, Farm Radio International produces scripts about farming and rural development for more than 300 stations in Africa. The scripts are relevant, simple and easy to adapt to local languages and settings. Text messages from listeners indicate overwhelming support. A script on food/grains storage using pepper instead of chemical pesticides is reported to have been particularly helpful.
Thanks to continuing support from Canadian donors, Farm Radio has been able to expand its programs through a weekly e-newsletter, and it is now conducting a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded African Farm Radio Research Initiative in five countries to discover the best ways to use radio to support smallholder farmers.
George Atkins is 91years old. He stepped down from the Farm Radio board only two years ago. He observed that “at this time, millions of the poorest of the poor farmers of the world are hearing this information to help them increase their food supplies and have better nutrition and health. If that isn’t what’s helping people in developing countries, I don’t know what it is. I have to pinch myself when I think of the people who are helped by this service that is available to them by just turning on their radio.”
Atkins said he hopes Canadians will continue their generous donations to support the low-cost but effective approach he started 30 years ago, noting that the world food shortages of the past year have reinforced the importance of supporting smallholder farmers around the world.
James Achanyi-Fontem
Director of Publications
Cameroon Link
Tel: 00237 77 75 88 40
Email:camlink99@gmail.com