The workshop explored the question of the role media can play in scaling climate smart agriculture. Specifically, how the power of media can be leveraged for improving agri-business and knowledge networks, stimulate responses and feedback by farmers, while ensuring gender equality and inclusiveness of climate smart agriculture?

The AICCRA Zambia team asked how this action can contribute to accelerating and deepening its aim of reaching 300,000 famers by 2023.

Entry points for multimedia supporting climate-smart agriculture

The AICCRA Climate Smart Agriculture and Climate Information Services Integration workshop was held in Lusaka, Zambia in July 2022 with 14 Accelerator SMEs interacting with several media companies and AICCRA researchers. The conversations held during the workshop point to important opportunities:

1. Visualize local networks

Visualization helps us understand how these networks interconnect and makes us think about how to prioritize and effectively communicate with important partners at the different levels where they specialize and operate (see Figure 1).

Accelerator SMEs in Zambia work through dynamic connections and networks to provide solutions to climate risks, even if in day-to-day operations these might not necessarily be apparent to them. Applying the Polinode network analyses illustrates the tangible links and importance of diverse stakeholders in relation to the accelerator SMEs.

Understandably, farmers, through community level structures, are priority partners that the Accelerator SMEs target and want to connect with. Just as important though are the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries, which at national level, are providing the institutional context and incentives for agribusiness, as well as extension services at local level for farmers to take up technologies and services.

Interestingly, International Development Enterprise (iDE Zambia) scored high and stood out for the Accelerator SMEs as an interconnecting force for improving access to climate smart technologies, markets and market information. Meanwhile, the sometimes-overlooked National Agricultural Information Services (NAIS) is rated by the Accelerator SMEs as the most accessible media for broadcasting information for smallholder farmers and as a credible information source for enriching farmer climate smart knowledge and decision-making.

2. Boosting linkages and working through networks

Engagement through existing links can help us to generate multiplier effects more effectively when communicating our activities, products and services, and learning. Through this, we are also creating a dynamic forum for securing buy-tin and feedback and space for new opportunities.

Decision-making and innovation should thrive at the community level. Communities ultimately drive demand and supply of climate smart products and services and further innovation.

These communities, especially women, youth and vulnerable groups, however, often cannot access and afford what agribusiness offers. For agribusinesses to be successful they need enabling policies and an enabling environment, which is evolves at the macro level. This enabling environment is in itself a multiplier for agri investment, upskilling, and sustained growth.

The media can play a vitally important role in stimulating networks and linkages across all levels - macro, meso and micro - through its ability to contextualize messages and tailor content to users and circumstances. Strengthening linkages and working through networks whether via media or other comms channels also keeps us in check as to how well we are doing in impacting communities, especially women, youth and vulnerable groups.

This approach is not at the expense of our monitoring evaluation and learning tools and frameworks. Rather, it is dynamic and complementary in generating the levels of constructive dialogue and feedback we need to stimulate responses and support change of course that opens up more innovation and more new opportunities.

3. Creating value through communication channels

AICCRA Zambia uses diverse communication channels and media companies to target networks at different levels in support of the agri-business eco-system, aiming at improving climate smart adaptation for smallholder farmers in their diverse contexts and circumstances.

Multimedia can be powerful in calling agri-business networks to action and to interacting in accelerating climate smart impacts. Media that is community-centered and uses online and off-line content provides agri-businesses a platform to dialogue with farmers. Through local means of mobilization, the media is well positioned for stimulating farmer responses to climate smart products and services. Moreover, media can deploy multiple channels suited to farmers’ circumstances, with radio being the most accessible and wide-spread channel. And media can get creative in integrating technical demonstrations and using drama, along with extension services, cooperatives and other community influencers to expand and deepen farmer knowledge.

AICCRA Zambia is engaging multi-media to deepen and expand climate smart adaptation together with its program partners at multiple levels. Here's a snapshot of 3 core components so far:

• National Agricultural Information Service (NAIS), radio program targeting and empowering rural households in the use of climate smart technologies together with contextualized climate information services, making their voices heard.
• Shamba Shape Up, TV life episodes that showcase the Accelerator SMEs providing solutions to common climate related problems farmers face, advertising their businesses and products, and thereby expanding their networks and services.
• Agricom Media amplifies outreach through multi-media campaigns calling for action at meso and macro levels, targeting the 4 AICCRA Zambia programs: 1. Private finance into climate smart agri-businesses to create a more favorable business context, 2. Digitization of the agricultural sector through AgData Hub, 3. Intern and Innovation Grant targeting young agribusiness leaders, 4. Multi-Stakeholder Dialogues that tackle important climate and business topics across the stakeholder continuum.

Participant voices are critical

Going the end mile in ensuring that farmers can access educational information and material for them to make use of climate smart innovations remains a critical gap. More nuanced media content, production and feedback responding to farmers needs and circumstances, will be critical for farmers to improve agricultural practices to cope with climate risks.

Just some of the comments on the presentation given by National Agricultural Information Services (NAIS) can be read below:

“Farmers might have the same needs, but their local contexts differ, and this requires solutions that are relevant to them. Media is important for connecting farmers with the networks that can provide that local expertise and be a sounding board for capturing farmers’ feedback,” said Georgina Smith, Shamba Shape Up Series producer for Zambia. “Using a range of media that complement each other and are working in parallel, we can make that sounding board stronger and louder. And when media gets to work alongside the private sector it creates value for the private sector as they get to share their expertise, demo their products and services, dialogue with farmers on climate smart solutions that address the farmers’ specific needs and make sales.”

“We need much more content creation around climate smart agriculture and innovation for farmers. We need to work with farmers to fill education and information gaps and in doing so nurture farmer understanding and decision-making around technology uptake. This requires communication formats that are accessible offline,” urged Daliso Chitundu of Agricom Media. “We can also do more to demonstrate to the private sector the value of media and communications outreach beyond just promoting and branding its products. For example, by engaging with the private sector to promote information that is currently sitting with scientists.”

“Having dedicated phone-in sessions with farmers on community radio is a great way to collect feedback from farmers. Farmers also get to inform subsequent radio episodes content – what subjects should feature and what subject matter specialists should be on call to respond to queries from farmers. This will help to address the big gap in technical advice on the side of farmers, given the imbalance in the ratio of 1 extension officer to 400 farmers."

The way forward – strengthening media networks for climate smart agriculture

At the July workshop, Accelerator SMEs, media companies and AICCRA researchers and communication experts provided feedback on how AICCRA Zambia, through improved media outreach and strengthening networks and community responses, can help the SMEs in achieving their goals more effectively.

Content: Research engaging media in climate smart agriculture comms and outreach should ensure that content is co-created with media, SMEs and farmers. Climate smart means that technologies respond to context specific climate related challenges. This involves understanding how farmers experience climate risks, addressing their multiple risks and problems (water, soil, plant and livestock health and productivity, market and finance) and therefore requires integrated solutions. Content that is well put together will trigger more research to respond to, as common problems reveal other common problems.  

Approach: AICCRA Zambia’s approach of hands-on research blending agri-business and media ensures steering content and production across all media partners and Accelerator SMEs, whilst leveraging on their diverse competencies. Media products must be mixed with farmer-to-farmer knowledge sharing and local subject matter expertise. These should support feedback and learning, to understand farmers’ particular circumstances and ensure that women, youth and vulnerable groups can make use of the services.

Feedback: It is important to involve our media partners and the Accelerator SMEs in showing how the Accelerator SMEs are each contributing to their own impact pathways as well as achieving their business goals. Media and agri-business are then working together to shape what they want to communicate and to whom, and they can use the AICCRA platform for extra leverage.

This way of working for improved media outreach and strengthening networks and community responses makes it more engaging and exciting for all involved. Researchers can then more effectively grasp changing circumstances and respond to the changes. It also enables them to engage and work more closely with networks to accelerate climate smart impact.

Acknowledgements: The workshop held on July 28th 2022 in Lusaka, Zambia was sponsored by the World Bank under the AICCRA project. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the organizations.

Authors

• Sabine Homann-Kee Tui, Social Scientist, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Research Program Enabling Systems Transformation, Malawi.
• Melanie Wilkinson, Co-founder and CEO, Lima Links, Zambia.
• Tonya Schuetz, Head and Allison Poulos, Senior officer, with the Strategic Performance and Results Management Unit, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, who were introduced to the Polinode tool through the CGIAR, and help applied it to AICCRA.