Posted on December, 3, 2018 at 11:45 am
THOUSANDS of bean farmers in Kapori, Kileo and Kivulini valleys in Mwanga, Kilimanjaro Region have started growing beans, thanks to public awareness through a radio programme.
Mr Bakari Mmbaga of Kileo Village in Mwanga, Kilimanjaro and his fellow villagers have received expert guidance through the radio programme run under a special initiative by Arusha-based Farm Radio International (FRI).
With the programmes, aired on Moshibased Sauti ya Injili, Mr Mmbaga and his fellow villagers are now aware of what it takes to grow beans correctly and get high crop yield.
“Since we started taking the radio programme seriously, harvest has more than doubled,” said Mr Mmbaga, who was in the company of his fellow farmers Waziri Hassan, Ridhiwani Ismail, Juma Athman Mmbaga, Azizi Nyasi and Jovini Shirima.
The farmers said previously, they could harvest between two and three bags per acre, but currently, they were getting seven and eight bags per acre. Ms Elishililia Mollely, who heads Lilangwera Group of Nasholi Village in Arusha shared similar sentiments.
“Through the radio, we interact with experts from Selian Agricultural Research Institute directly...Through the radio, we know when to prepare land, when to plant, what type of seed to plant, when and how to weed, when to harvest and how to minimise post-harvest losses,” she noted.
Bean farmers in Kilimanjaro and Arusha benefit from FRI’s “Uptake” project, which gets financial support from International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) under the New Alliance ICT Extension Fund Activity.
Through the project, FRI works with eight radio stations across various regions in the country as it endeavours to bring economic prosperity and food security to small scale farmers.
“Through the project, we empower broadcasters so they can provide radio services that share knowledge and augment the voices of small-scale farmers, their families and their communities,” said FRI Regional Programme Manager for East and Southern Africa Rex Chapota.
He said the programme was designed to bolster small-scale farmers’ economic position.
“Our goal is to ensure every smallscale farmer has access to a radio programme that helps him/her to succeed,” he said. At the core of the programme is a state-of-the-art radio and ICT innovation hub at FRI offices in Arusha.
According to FRI Digital Innovation Officer Caroline Kimaro, the hub is set up in such a way that it facilitates delivery of the right information to farmers in a costeffective manner with the radio.
“At first, we had what is known as Telerivet through which farmers would send short messages, but at a cost. We then improved it further to what we call ‘Uliza (Ask) service, which allows them (farmers) to beep via their mobile phones and wait for a call from an expert via the radio,” she said.
Through the system, FRI has been able to reach more than 100,000 farmers across the country. According to Mr Kassim Sheghembe, an ICT consultant at FRI, the system issues multiple choice and openended questions to farmers.
The questions are being carefully screened before an expert in bean farming at Selian responds to them.
It also offers an SMS alert service, which warns farmers of impending crop diseases, pests and weather challenges. The system is being further improved to ensure all questions from farmers are responded to.
Source: Daily News