Farmer Communication Programme

The overall goal of BvAT’s Farmer Communication Programme (FCP) is to enhance economic, social and environmental livelihoods of smallholder farmers in East Africa through increased adoption of ecologically sustainable agriculture (ESA). More specifically, the FCP interventions aim to increase smallholder farmers’ incomes; improved productivity and enhanced households’ food resilience. The three areas align with the country’s Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS) priority focus areas – increase small-scale farmer, pastoralist and fisherfolk incomes; increase agricultural output and value addition; and, boost household food resilience. The fight against hunger and poverty is bound closely with global challenges of climate change, loss of biodiversity and inequality.

The FCP employs multifaceted pathways to provide up to date information and knowledge on ecologically sustainable agriculture to smallholder farmers in Kenya and Tanzania with spillovers to other farmers in Africa.  The programme made its first footprint in enhancing farmers’ knowledge on sustainable agriculture in 2005 through The Organic Farmer Magazine. The farmer communication later expanded to include The Organic Farmer Radio and Infonet, a web-based knowledge platform, in 2007. In 2009 the FCP grew to establish field-based extension services through the Farmer Communication Outreach pathway. In the same year, building on the successes of TOF Magazine, Mkulima Mbunifu Magazine was started in Arusha, Tanzania. It is gratifying that each communication pathway has evolved to become fully fledged stand-alone but providing synergies to others under the FCP. Some of the innovative technologies promoted through collaborations with FCP include icipe’s Push-Pull, fall army worm control and tsetse fly repellent collar technologies.

Our FCP programme runs against a background of several constraints that continue to affect efficient and effective delivery of extension and advisory services to smallholder farmers. Such include the declining human resources in extension, uncoordinated extension service delivery and low funding. In spite of research institutions innovating and generating new knowledge relevant to smallholder farmer needs, the chronic challenge of reaching the smallholder farmer with the right information persists. BvAT provides an excellent opportunity through its FCP in addressing this gap. Our programme’s work is motivated by evidence that validated and relevant information improves the farmer’s livelihoods; environmentally, socially and economically. FCP implements its activities to mitigate against conventional agricultural practices that prioritize high yields but harm our immediate environment. Continuous application of conventional practices has resulted in widespread environmental degradation, commonly resulting in soil erosion, water, soil and air pollution, biodiversity loss, and desertification.