Issue# 18

Welcome to all readers!

Before we tell you about this week’s issue of Farm Radio Weekly, one explanation is required. As of today, the Developing Countries Farm Radio Network (DCFRN) has officially changed its name to Farm Radio International. So we’ll refer to the organization as Farm Radio International throughout this issue, and from now on. For more details on this change, please see the Farm Radio Action section (formerly known as the DCFRN Action section

Now, we would like to extend a special welcome to our friends in Malawi. A few weeks ago, Farm Radio International held a stakeholder forum in Lilongwe, in which many radio broadcasters participated (more information about this forum is included in the Farm Radio Action section). We are pleased to say that five participants from this forum – Hanke Marvin from Story Workshop, Calvin Kamchacha from Farmers Forum for Trade and Social Justice, Benson Nkhoma Somba from Galaxy Media, Patricia Kapulula from Malawi News Agency, and George Ntonya from G&A International – have become members of the FRW community. In this spirit, we are also pleased to offer you FRW’s first news story based in Malawi, about a women’s cooperative that learned some of the secrets to marketing success.

We also have two stories that offer new answers to an age-old question – how can farmers get the most out of their fields? We see that some Burundian farmers, frustrated by the rising cost of chemical fertilizer, are trying an organic alternative. In Uganda, the government is encouraging farmers to put their hand hoes aside and try a new technology called the walking tractor.

If you are enjoying your subscription to Farm Radio Weekly, we invite to you share it with your colleagues in radio broadcasting, or others who may be interested. A new feature on the FRW website allows you to e-mail articles at the click of a button. Check it out at: http://farmradio.org/english/weekly/. At the same time, why not show people how to get their own free subscription, simply by filling out this online form: http://farmradio.org/english/fr_weekly_subscribe.asp.

Happy reading!

-The Farm Radio Weekly Team

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African Farm News in Review

1. Malawi: Adding value sweetens profits for honey producers (Farm Radio Weekly, Commonwealth News and Information Service)

2. Burundi: Rice bran can substitute for chemical fertilizer (Syfia Grands Lacs)

3. Uganda: Walking tractors save time and money (Farm Radio Weekly, New Vision)

Upcoming Events

-May 6-9: Free course on ICTs for development

Radio Resource Bank

-Online course on interviewing for radio

Farm Radio Action

-DCFRN is now Farm Radio International

-Stakeholders forum initiates Farm Radio Network of Malawi

Farm Radio Script of the Week

-Improved honey production and processing in dryland Kenya

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When it comes to selling food products, first impressions can be everything. Honey in a leaky, plastic bottle won’t garner much interest, and will sell for a low price. But the same honey, packaged in a glass jar with a nice label, can attract customers and earn profits.Beekeeping is a traditional practice in many parts of the world. It is also widely promoted as a way for rural people to earn a living with minimal impact on the environment. But a successful operation requires both bee sense and business sense.

Janet Lowore is a consultant for the British NGO Bees for Development. She recently worked with members of the Mbaweme Women’s Cooperative Society in Mzuzu, Malawi, teaching them to turn their bee products into better incomes. The course focused on value addition and product diversification.

Ms. Lowore explained that packaging can be the most important way to add value to a product. For example, attractively presented table honey is now in high demand among Malawian supermarkets and tourist shops.

A pretty package is particularly important for the tourist market. Visitors often want to take home authentic “made in Malawi” gifts. A pair of beeswax candles can fit the bill – especially if they are dressed up with dried flowers or perhaps some attractive fabric.

The women’s cooperative learned that they must add a profit margin for every value addition, whether it is a good-quality label or a bit of fabric.

Ms. Lowore also taught the women about some lesser-known bee products. For example, bees use a substance called propolis to seal small gaps in their hives. A wise beekeeper can use this to make products such as propolis tincture, which treats gums and sore throats.

This training was part of an initiative by the Malawian government to empower women. The government recognizes that women entrepreneurs have poor access to the capital and training they need to operate profitable businesses.

The Mbaweme Women’s Cooperative Society was previously supported with supplies and training to begin beekeeping. With the market savvy they learned from Ms. Lowore, their bee business may be busier than ever. By the end of their training, the group was already receiving orders for their newest product, hand-dipped beeswax candles. The cooperative plans to pass on their knowledge of value addition and product diversification to other women’s groups.

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On Dismas Nsabimana’s farm in northern Burundi, the soil is infertile and the weather unreliable. Fertilizer, therefore, is an absolute necessity. But chemical fertilizer has become far too expensive. Sometimes, it is impossible to find. Organic alternatives like manure and compost are also hard to come by. As a result, Mr. Nsabimana went for more than one year without a crop to harvest.

The answer to his problem came from a surprising place – the tiny shells that surround rice grains. Rice bran is a part of the hull that is typically removed during rice processing. It has become a popular fertilizer in parts of Burundi. Mr. Nsabimana said that rice bran is not as effective as chemical fertilizer, but it was effective enough to save his crops.

The Burundian province of Ngozi is densely populated, and all available farmland is in use. Farmers cannot afford to let their land go fallow, a process which naturally restores soil nutrients. Nor is there much grass or livestock to produce organic fertilizer. So, when chemical fertilizer became so costly that farmers who used it could not turn a profit, rice bran was a welcome option.

Rice bran contains three key nutrients required by plants – nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. It sells for about 100 Burundi francs per kilogram (less than 10 American cents, or 0.05 Euros), during the growing season. At this price, farmers can buy 20 bags of rice bran for the cost of one bag of chemical fertilizer.

Désiré Sabushimike operates a rice hulling machine and sells rice bran. His only customers used to be farmers who fed the product to cattle, swine, and chickens. But over the past year and a half, farmers have been jumping at the chance to purchase rice bran for their fields.

Farmers apply rice bran by hand. Since the outer shells are unevenly crushed by hulling machines, the rice bran decomposes at varying rates, adding nutrients gradually to the soil over time.

Étienne Barinakandi is a research officer who studied the effectiveness of rice bran as fertilizer at the Institut des sciences agronomiques du Burundi. He summed up the effectiveness of rice bran this way – on a piece of land which would produce 100 kilograms of beans with chemical fertilizer, you could grow 70 kilograms of beans with rice bran. In Ngozi province, farmers like Mr. Nsabimana feel this is much better than nothing!

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The sight of a farmer preparing a field with a hand hoe is common in Uganda’s rural communities. Most of the country’s small-scale farmers prepare their land for planting this way. It’s a long and arduous process – but few can afford to purchase tractors to make the work faster.

Now, the Ugandan government believes it has found a good alternative. On a recent trip to Thailand, a representative from the Ministry of Agriculture noticed farmers using two-wheeled tractors. The tractors are called “walking tractors” because farmers walk behind and push them.

Walking tractors cost much less than conventional tractors. They are also less expensive to operate because they use less diesel. The government has purchased 50 of the tractors and plans to make them available to farmers’ groups through a loan program.

The distribution of the walking tractors will be carried out through the National Agricultural Advisory Services, or NAADS, which operates government extension services. Alice Nakagwa is an information officer for NAADS. She said the introduction of walking tractors is part of the government’s effort to encourage mechanization in agriculture.

Ms. Nakagwa said that walking tractors come with various attachments, so they can serve many functions. Harrowing, or breaking up land in preparation for planting, could be done at a cost of 25,000 Ugandan shillings (about 15 American dollars or 10 Euros) per acre for equipment and labour. This is about one third of the equipment and labour cost of harrowing land with a conventional tractor, and even less than using an ox-plough.

The walking tractor can also be used to create the ridges needed for root vegetables such as Irish potatoes. Other attachments can be used for weeding and irrigation. The tractor’s diesel engine can also be used for shelling maize and threshing rice.

Walking tractors are now manufactured and sold in Uganda through the Marubeni Corporation. The cost is still prohibitive for individual small-scale farmers at 4.5 million Ugandan shillings (approximately 2,700 American dollars, or 1,700 Euros). NAADS expects them to be purchased and used by sub-county farmer forums, which have about 200 farmers each.

The government expects that walking tractors will increase productivity on farms, therefore improving food security and increasing rural incomes.

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The details of this story – about how to attractively package honey and make alternative bee products like propolis tincture – may be of special interest to beekeepers in your audience. But many of the lessons about marketing, adding value, and diversifying products are applicable to all entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial groups.

Janet Lowore, the consultant with Bees for Development who conducted the course for the Mbaweme Women’s Cooperative Society, generously responded to our request for additional tips on packaging and marketing a new agricultural product. These were her suggestions:

1) Understand the market opportunities Talk to people who run gift shops in or near tourist attractions. Talk to supermarkets. Look at what else is on the shelves and in the market. Look at the prices and trends.

2) Be prepared to experiment – new products are, by their very nature, risky. Test a product in different outlets and for different prices. If it sells well, try a higher price; if it sells badly, try a lower price (but not below cost).

3) If you venture into a market that you know little about, ask for some help or advice.

4) Consider a joint venture. For example, an owner of a gift shop may prefer to give advice about how a product should be packaged, and then place an order. Take this advice!

5) Food products require adherence to food standards, for handling, processing, and labelling. Find out about the standards in your country and follow them. Being able to show adherence to these standards can sometimes differentiate your product from others on the market.

6) Think about product combinations. Selling a candle with a candlestick (made by someone else) may bring a higher price than selling the component parts.

For more information on beekeeping in Africa, please visit the following websites and review the following Farm Radio International scripts:

-The Bees for Development website: http://www.beesfordevelopment.org/

-The website for Apiconsult, which calls itself “The Resource Centre for African Bees and Beekeeping”: http://www.apiconsult.com/

-“Improved honey production and processing in dryland Kenya” (Package 79, Script 1, November 2006), also featured as this week’s Script of the Week

-“The beekeepers of Shewula” (Package 48, Script 3, April 1998)

-“How bees help you make money” (Package 47, Script 7, January 1998)

You may also wish to revisit Farm Radio International’s script series on marketing agricultural products, “To Market, To Market,” which was published as part of Package 66 in March 2003:

-“Episode 1: Trusting the trader: the importance of reliable information”

-“Episode 2: A glut in the market – how supply and demand affect prices”

-“Episode 3: Where to sell: making the best choice”:

-“Episode 4: Marketing: calculating your costs”

-“Episode 5: Farmers’ helpers: radio and extension help farmers plan”:

Finally, you may wish to interview a local entrepreneur or entrepreneurial group about their experiences with preparing and marketing a new product – either for a news report, or an on-air discussion:
-How did they come up with the idea for the product (or the idea to market a local product)?
-What kind of market research did they conduct?
-How do they package the product to make it attractive to customers? What else do they do to add value to their product?
-How did they determine the best market price for their product?
-Did any partnerships or other types of support assist them in producing and marketing their product?
-How much money do they earn from their business? What role does this play in their family income?

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A quick Internet search revealed that farmers in Burundi’s Ngozi province are not the first to experiment with rice bran as fertilizer – though it doesn’t seem to be a very common practice. More familiar uses for rice bran include feeding livestock and farmed fish.

Frustration over the rising cost and limited availability of chemical fertilizer, on the other hand, is something that farmers across Africa can relate to. The search for less expensive alternatives to chemical fertilizers is an experience that countless farmers have in common. This story mentions two kinds of organic materials than can serve as alternatives, but are not available to many farmers in Ngozi province – grass for compost and livestock manure. There are other options, however.

For more information on improving soil fertility without chemical fertilizer, you may wish to review the following scripts:
-“Farmers can earn income by producing compost” (Package 80, Script 3, March 2007)

-“Dr. Compost answers questions about soil improvement” (Package 61, Script 9, October 2001)

-“Kenyan farmer treasures the calliandra tree”(Package 74, Script 6, March 2005)

-“Legumes make their own fertilizer – with help from their friends” (Package 80, Script 8, March 2007)

-“Improve rice yields without buying fertilizer” (Package 58, Script 2, January 2001)

You could also host a call-in or text-in show that invites local farmers to share their experiences with different types of fertilizer:
-Are chemical fertilizers readily available and affordable? Has the cost or accessibility of chemical fertilizers changed in the past few years?
-What organic alternatives to chemical fertilizers have farmers tried? What was their motivation for using the organic fertilizer? For example, was it cost, availability, effectiveness, health concerns, or something else?
-If they have tried both organic and chemical fertilizers, which materials did they find most effective? What application methods worked best?

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There is often a huge difference between the equipment used on large-scale and small-scale farms. The equipment that allows a large-holder farmer to make a profit may be both unaffordable and impractical for a small-holder farmer. Conventional, 65-horsepower tractors are a good example of this. The National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) of Uganda believes that walking tractors are a kind of “in-between” technology that could help small-scale farmers produce larger yields.

Through field tests conducted in Soroti, Mukono, Bushenyi, and Kitgun districts (one district in each of Uganda’s four regions), NAADS calculated the labour and equipment costs for harrowing one acre of land, as follows. (Note that 10,000 Ugandan shillings is equivalent to about 6 American dollars or 4 Euros):
-Hand hoe: 90,000 Ugandan shillings
-Conventional tractor: 70,000 Ugandan shillings
-Ox-plough: 30,000 Ugandan shillings
-Walking tractor: 25,000 Ugandan shillings

It seems that, although walking tractors are widely used by farmers in parts of Asia, only a small number of the machines are used in Africa. The purchase and use of walking tractors by large groups of farmers in Uganda may help to determine how valuable this technology is to small-holder farmers.

For more information on this news story, please visit:
-The National Agricultural Advisory Services website: http://www.naads.or.ug/naads.php

-The Wikipedia entry for two-wheel tractors, also known as walking tractors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-wheel_tractor

For additional programming on appropriate technology, consider the following Farm Radio International resources:

-“Groundnut sheller saves time, boosts profits” (Farm Radio Weekly, Issue 6)

-“Smartly designed animal cart helps Sudanese farmer” (Package 80, Script 10, March 2007)

-“Appropriate farming tools for African women farmers” (Package 82, Script 7, November 2007)

-“Improved cookstoves make life easier for women” (Package 73, Script 2, January 2005)

What sorts of new or traditional techniques and technologies do farmers in your area use to improve their efficiency and boost their yields? You may wish to research a local news story or host a call-in or text-in show that addresses questions such as:
-What traditional technologies or farming techniques do farmers use? Under what conditions are these technologies or techniques most effective?
-Have farmers in your area tried a specific new technique or technology? If so, how did they hear about it?
-If it was a technique, how did they adapt it to suit local farming conditions? What was the effect on their yield and profit?
-If it was a technology, was it purchased by individual farmers or by a farmers’ group? Did the technology prove well-suited to local conditions and needs? What was the effect on yield? Have the owner(s) found supplementary ways to make a profit from the technology (such as renting to other farmers)?

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The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation are offering an online course on networking in support of development. The course will cover how different information and communication technologies (ICTs) in a country – local, national, and international – fit together to provide a means of communication, and the issues that affect each level. The course is free and offered to members of the e-agriculture.org community in Africa who are currently, or would like to be, involved in the development and use of ICTs to support existing communications traditions and networks, especially in rural areas. The course runs from May 6-9, 2008, and applications are due by April 23, 2008. For more details, visit: www.e-agriculture.org.

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Interviewing is one of those skills that can always be improved upon. Whether you’re a seasoned professional, or just starting out in radio broadcasting, you may be interested in this online course offered on the BBC’s website. Through modules presented in both audio and text, you can review the basics of traditional radio interviews – the role of research, getting the best out of your interviewee, and dealing with the unexpected – as well as some tips for vox pops (audio clips from average people, usually commenting on some event or government decision.) Be sure to check out Module 4 on “Interviews from Hell,” in which a radio presenter looks back on some of his worst on-air moments and offers tips to stay on track during an interview. You can find the course online, here: http://www.bbctraining.com/onlineCourse.asp?tID=2555&cat=2772.

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The Developing Countries Farm Radio Network (DCFRN) has officially changed its name to Farm Radio International. The main reason for the change was that the former name was too long – it was easy to get the words in the name or the letters in the acronym mixed up! The organization’s goals and programs remain the same. We will continue to work with our network of rural radio broadcasters across sub-Saharan Africa, aiming to support you in your work to serve rural communities. Farm Radio International will continue to send script packages to partners three times a year and publish Farm Radio Weekly each week.

For more information on Farm Radio International’s goals and programs, please visit our website at: http://www.farmradio.org/english/. If you have any questions about the name change, please post them as a comment on the FRW website (http://farmradio.org/english/weekly/) or e-mail farmradioweekly@farmradio.org.

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Malawian radio and agriculture professionals will soon have an improved way to share knowledge and ideas, following a Farm Radio Programming Stakeholder Consultation Forum held in Lilongwe on March 28, 2008. Farm Radio International hosted the forum, which was attended by members of public, private and community radio organizations, academics, NGO representatives, staff from the Ministries of Food Security and Information and Civic Education, and other interested parties.

Participants discussed what is happening in Malawi regarding farm radio, and the challenges that stakeholders face. Challenges identified include inadequate funding, limited skill development, limited coverage, limited time for farm radio programming, lack of creativity and innovation in programming, competition among stations, and political interference. Towards the end of the forum, a steering committee was elected to establish the Farm Radio Network of Malawi. Members of the committee include:

-Training: Professor Christopher Kamlongera (Head of Department, Department of Performing and Fine Arts, Chancellor College)
-Production: Marvin Hanke (Executive Director, The Story Workshop)
-Broadcasting: Everesi Kayanula (Controller of Research, Malawi Broadcasting Corporation)
-Development Communication: Clodina Chowa (Assistant Chief Communications Officer, Agricultural Communications Branch, Ministry of Agriculture)
-Policy and Advocacy: Andrew Mazulu (Department of Research and Planning, Ministry of Information and Civic Education)
-A member in the area of Research/Evaluation is to be named.

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As this week’s news story about bee products mentions, beekeeping is often promoted as a sustainable livelihood for rural people. Since bees feed on and promote the growth of natural vegetation, the environmental impact of beekeeping is minimal. This week’s script features an interview with Linus Wekesa, a researcher in improved beekeeping practices. Mr. Wekesa explains the beekeeping practices that he promotes as part of his work with the Desert Margins Program in dryland Kenya – a program aimed at enhancing food security and alleviating poverty by halting or reversing desertification.

This script can also be found online at:
http://www.farmradio.org/english/radio-scripts/79-1script_en.asp

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