Please share experiences of effective collaboration between stakeholders and broadcasters for farmer programs. We also want you to share example of challenges you’ve faced in collaborating.
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Olusina Motiasan from Ejulenen93. 7fm igbodigo, okitipupa, ondo state, Nigeria Benefits of collaborating on farmer programs are:it bring more closeness.it create good avenue for interaction between broadcasters and stakeholders. it gives broadcasters good insight of farm program to design.To the challenges of collaborating on farmer programs are: fundings in terms of sponsorship, mobility.Communication barrier
I had very hard experience on collaborating with farmers here in Mpanda rural areas, farmers be like “if you need information about us and our activities, you have to pay us some money”. it was really hard but finally i made it by talking to village elders then they call for community gathering so i used to gather the information in term of questions and answers
Olusina Motiasan from Ejulenen93. 7fm a programmer,producer,presenter, reporter and news caster.about challenges facing while collaborating farmers like someone some farmers will tell you they can’t give you any information until you give out something. How can we overcome this?
yes community entery is important per my experience, you have to plan it well
it is normally easier if you pass through or reach your target audience through the opinion leaders you are talking about, the elders, the assembly men, the chieves elways help you easy these opinion leaders can always help you to enter the community easly to your audience.
Welcome Kungu to the community
@smawerere we are still waiting on your contribution regarding benefits and challenges of collaborating on farmer programs
My experiences of effective collaboration between stakeholders and broadcasters for farmer programs
Collaboration is having relationships with stakeholders. Therefore effective collaboration could be ensuring that collaborators’ or organizations’ concerns have to be important for the station, its listeners, and the community-at-large.
In collaboration our stations could promote community events, produce news reports or public announcements about the collaborating organization. In so doing, we normally help to reach listeners with high quality and developmental programs and reporting. We were also sponsored sometimes to go to field to gather content for the farmer programs.
We could promote good farming practices like climate smart agriculture and promoted their seeds and their other farm implements.
Example of challenges I have faced in collaborating
First of all, i came to know that in such collaborations, the partners tend to over shadow the programs and do a lot of their commercial sales. So we comprised the program.
Second, is when we promoted expensive seeds and farm implements of some organization we were collaborating with on promoting Climate Smart Agriculture Technology. Most of the farmers in the target areas could not afford the cost for them and we were saying in the messages to the farmers that they were cheap and yet high yielding. Sorry I will not mention the company here.
Third, you will forgive me about this because it is not related to farming, here we face challenges of the many traditional healers, herbalists who are collaborating with especially our local radio clusters/channels. They teach about witchcraft and how it can make people rich and get lack, and yet a big number of the listeners are not interested in the quack traditional practices as they say! These are collaborating in promoting herbal medicine and yet many of the traditional healers are quacks. So we are in a dilemma of money verses good broadcasting, they are injecting in a lot of money to these stations and the presenters that do such programs.
Farmer radio programs are Advisory Services and not just information sharing. Therefore there is the need for effective collaboration between stakeholders and broadcasters at all times to ensure farmer programs are providing a needed service for farmers and other stakeholders at all times.
An example of some effective collaboration between stakeholder and broadcasters is the one on the campaign for the use of standard weight and measure for selling or buying farm produce. (Agri Businesses, Farmer and Traders Associations, Extension, Standard Authority, Ministry of Trade , 5 radio stations, WFP, Ministry of Food and Agriculture) As part of the design stage all stakeholder were consulted and brought to design the program, they also accepted roles and responsibilities on the program, they were given date and time when they will appear on the show, more importantly, their organization through this made the commitment to release them for the program.
To ensure continuous interaction with the stakeholders a whatsApp platform was created with all stakeholders on board, program time and reminders are shared and radio teams ask questions, request for resources person, provide feedback and seek clarifications all on this same platform and responses come with speed. This is one example of an effective Collaboration. Please Note i am always available to answer your questions. Thank you
Hello Ben @bfiafor, i agree with you that farmer programs are advisory services . Actually farmer programs are educational programs as well as entertaining. They provide information, guide farmers, link farmers to markets and traders, to products etc and all those involved in the chains of production and services and other requirements.
Good day, Olusina Motiasan is my name from Ejulenen93. 7fm igbodigo, okitipupa, ondo state, Nigeria. A programmer, producer,presenter,reporter and a newscaster. I said yesterday that collaboration in the existing mutual and cordial relationship between broadcasters and stakeholders
Collaboration is an important element in our farm programs since we are not expert on the field of the agriculture sector and also because we don’t know it all.
Challenges with Collaboration
The only challenge I see is that, most partners in a collaboration want things for free but that will also not help the media institutions since we also have bills to pay. But collaborators should accept to pay something small to also support the run of the content on air.
Thank you.
Hello Sarah, Thank you for your comments. That is why we need effective collaboration to deliver not just information and entertainment but the full package to Farmers and other actors within the chain. You have a great point there
BENEFITS OF COLLABORATION
Collaboration allows partners to take more strategic approach to effective programme production in dissemination of the needful farming information and impacting useful knowledge. It is also reduces risk of committing blunder on air as adequate information of the topic to treat would have got through the stakeholders. Collaboration allows new opportunities for partnership – not only between existing partners, but successful partnerships can spur ambitions for future, additional cross-boundary working.
CHALLENGES OF COLLABORATION
Funding is the main challenges facing farming programme. The partner whose we collaborated with may wants to hijack the programme if care is not taking (an experience we have once had during one of our farmer’s programme).
I may still comes in for more.
Thanks.
Oh dear Nkungu!
it is so unfortunate that farmers ask for money there in exchange for information! It was like… becoming common even here in some rural areas. However, we used the radio platforms to educate them on how important it is to have their voices in a farmer program. We used to tell them that they are valued most in the programs and their voices contribute a lot to the development of the nation more so, to their own livelihoods. For me i can go anywhere in my region and a mere mention of my name, they just embrace me and give me special treatment. Then when i record their voices and they hear themselves on the radio, they feel good. Because these farmer programs have contributed a lot to their livelihoods so they value them.
Effective Collaboration breeds credibility. When the right information is given over time, listeners tend to have that belief in the source of the information and in this case that source will be the program and platform.
Effective Collaboration also encourages trustworthiness and ‘good name’ of program/platform among listeners.
Notwithstanding the above benefits, there are also challenges. Manufacturing stakeholders tend to take advantage of the collaboration to freely advertise their products or services (you win some and lose some). At that particular moment, you are forced to validate the product or service of the manufacturer though you might have reservations.
There is also the tendency of allowing some institutions (especially government) to distribute propaganda. There was a time on my show when a representative from the Agricultural Ministry was creating the impression that Cocoa fertilizers were being given to farmers for free. It rather turned out that they were being given to them at a subsidized fee.
Benefits of Collaborating on farmer programs
Collaboration leverages diverse skill sets from various players as the program is able to draw from a wide range of expertise of the collaborating institutions.
Collaboration enhances evidence based information for the program. There is an opportunity to learn from the research studies that have been done by others. Engaging research institutions ensures or gives a program an opportunity of regular access to recent research study findings that would enrich the program. On the other hand, it opens doors to indigenous knowledge from farmers that would be worth further researching.
Collaboration ensures sustainability or continuation of programs. This is true when an institution or a program engages institutions that are established and are constantly there on the ground. For instance, involvement of government institutions or workers (e.g. extension workers) would lead to continuous engagement with such institutions whenever there is need to do so.
Collaboration builds strong partnerships or working relationships.
Collaboration makes networking possible among organizations as they share notes ideas and plans on how to implement specific programs.
Collaboration is cost effective as collaborating institutions can agree cost sharing on specific activities of the programs.
Effective collaboration I would say it starts from the begining. Involve farmers,extensions,Agrodealers ,government if possible, like Ministry of agriculture and researchers.
When you do your audience research involve farmers and other stakeholders to hear from them . It is good also to plan message matrix together with the stallholders and let the get involved or participate into the plans.This will help to CREATE OWNERSHIP of the program to them which at the end of the day it will be easy to get resource people(experts) because you started with them from the begining.
IT becomes a challenge when you have your own program and you want them to participate as resource people,they will ask payment,some will say I have no permission to on air until may boss allows,then it becomes difficult
Thanks
In Tanzania, as in much of Africa, the challenge of reaching out to rural audiences and effectively providing them a voice is exacerbated by poor road infrastructure and the limited human and financial resources of radio stations.
Mobile phones have alleviated this to some degree. But distant conversations on often poor-quality phone lines are no real substitute to journalists investigating issues and recording interviews and debates in the field.
Some donor-funded projects have compensated for this by sponsoring programming that effectively pays radio stations to move out of the studio and into communities. Unfortunately many Community Radios has poor management that deploy their staffs (Journalists) who finally produce less quality programs.
But if donors/sponsors can provide a clear way of how their funds can be used, Such field-based programs have more depth and quality. They highlight issues that are unlikely to be covered in studio-based programming.
These programs inevitably end when donor sponsorship ceases. Radio stations move back to studio-based and urban centric coverage. The reality is that most radio stations in Africa struggle to sustain programming that involves substantial rural coverage and field-based programming inevitably becomes limited to easily accessible locations.