Radio is an effective tool for sharing timely agricultural information to farming communities, particularly in Africa. It is easily accessible for many and helps to address potential barriers of literacy and language. 

On the lastest  episode of AICCRA’s Climate Smart Africa podcast - released on World Radio Day - Mina Okuru speaks to Gideon Sarkodie, Radio Presenter with Adars FM in Kintampo and Francisca Martey, Deputy Director, Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet) about how a collaboration, supported by AICCRA Ghana, between the Ghana Meteorological Agency and community radio stations is boosting farmers’ climate resilience efforts.

Gideon explains why radio is so important, saying: 

“Farmers need climate information to be delivered in formats that can be easily understood and radio achieves this by delivering the information through voice and local languages...They want it in a language they can understand.”

Climate information services, including daily, weekly, and seasonal forecasts and associated advisories help farmers to make the right decisions for their farms and can accelerate their adoption of climate-smart agriculture technologies and practices.

In Ghana, AICCRA’s collaboration with Farm Radio International and community radio stations have increased farmers use of daily, weekly, and seasonal forecasts and associated advisories and improved their capacity to choose and adopt the most appropriate and efficient climate smart technologies and practices to boost productivity. 

Francisca shared how this collaboration with AICCRA has helped the Ghana Meteorological Agency to scale up the delivery of climate information to farmers.

"Because AICCRA brought GMet on board, people in the implementing zones have actually learned about weather forecasting. They have come about to say, 'Ok, we cannot do without weather forecasting'. And AICCRA brought on board these other partners who could upscale the forecasts to many people - like the Esoko platform and Farm Radio.”