Voices from the field: Kano Sikple, Ghana

Every Monday evening Kano Sikple turns on her radio set, certain in the knowledge that she is about to learn something useful.

“I know that every Monday I am sure to hear something new about my farming activity, so this motivates me,” she says.

Kano listens to the AgroTech radio program on Adars FM in order to help her with her two-acre maize farm in Kobeeda Number 1, in the Kintampo North District in the Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana.

This year, she planted one and a half acres of her farm with improved seed, because of what the radio program taught her. While she has not yet harvested, she says already the strength of the seed has proven better than what she was using before. If it continues this way, she says next year she will continue to buy the improved seed.

“Before, I used to do my own kind of farming and I would lose in many ways,” she says. Now Kano says she has learned how to use the improved seeds, how to prepare her land before planting, and how to plant in rows. “The radio program has helped a lot.”

Kano says that it’s been especially important for the women of her community.

“Women shouldn’t leave themselves out,” she says. “Women should do more listening than even the men, because I have seen that the radio program is helping them even more.”

The radio program that Kano listens to is made possible through USAID’s  New Alliance ICT Extension Challenge Fund. This project focuses on using a scalable, integrated suite of ICT-based services to cost-effectively drive behaviour change and help Ghanaian farmers increase their yields of six target crops (maize, rice, soybean, cassava, yam, and cowpeas), thereby improving food security. 

Tara Sprickerhoff
About the author  
Tara Sprickerhoff is a recent graduate of Carleton University’s Bachelor of Journalism program. She spent the summer of 2015 working in Accra, Ghana, as a journalism intern with Farm Radio International, and recently returned to continue on. Tara aspires to one day work in radio herself, as she is happiest when she is able to give others a voice to share their own stories and passions.

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