Helping millions of African farmers over the airwaves
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Cayenne pepper to discourage elephants from grazing on farm fields. Placing a lit candle in a container of grain before sealing it to deprive pests of oxygen. Organizing a community to clean up its water supply.
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 them these ideas with each other. Instead, the ideas being shared 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 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. Today, 884 radio scripts later, and with the new name of Farm Radio International, Atkins’ brainchild celebrates its 30th anniversary of successfully reaching farmers through what remains the cheapest and most reliable medium in the developing world — radio.
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