The sound and vision of organic farming for rural audiences: Webinar dedicated to media houses

A webinar titled ‘The sound and vision of organic farming for rural audiences’ was held by Access Agriculture on 14th March for the English-speaking audience. For the French-speaking audience, a webinar on the same theme, titled ‘Le son et la vision de l’agriculture biologique pour les audiences rurales’ was held on 21st March. Both the webinars were organised as part of the Knowledge Centre for Organic Agriculture (KCOA) project activities.

The webinars focused on how media houses (radio, television, newspapers, web media) can effectively use and benefit from Access Agriculture videos to support learning on organic farming, climate change adaptation, agri-entrepreneurship and raise awareness of audiences on organic food.

Mass media, such as radio and television, are powerful tools for effective delivery of agricultural extension advice, knowledge and information. However, they often struggle to have quality content.

Thanks to a win-win partnership that Access Agriculture has established with media houses in several countries, they freely receive packages of quality farmer training videos and audio tracks in local languages for broadcasting for the benefit of the public.

Rural radio stations are able to use the soundtracks and even organise listener and viewing clubs. Many TV stations are now using the Access Agriculture videos because the quality is appreciated by their viewers.

The webinars gave an opportunity to some of these media houses to share with the public, especially other media professionals, their experiences, including lessons learnt, of using the videos and audio tracts.

The webinars were facilitated by Access Agriculture resource persons (Blessings Flao and Phil Malone for the English one, and Nafissath Barres and Jonas Wanvoeke for the French one). Panelists from various media houses from Kenya and India (for the English webinar) as well as from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Benin (for the French one) participated.

The webinars had active participation from viewers on both Zoom and Facebook platforms.

English webinar – 30 participants (out of 103 registrations) for the Zoom platform while Facebook platform had 336 views;
French webinar – 20 participants (out of 60 registrations) for the Zoom platform while Facebook platform had 330 views.

The recordings for both webinars can be accessed on the links below.

English