Podcasting to improve food security and nutrition

A case study in Guruve and Mt Darwin, Zimbabwe under the Ensuring Nutrition, Transforming and Empowering Rural Farmers and Promoting Resilience in Zimbabwe (ENTERPRIZE) program

by Innocent Kafembe

Guruve Zimbabwe, 2018 -The Zimbabwe Livelihoods and Food Security Programme (LFSP) is improving the food security and nutrition of smallholder farmers and rural communities in Zimbabwe. Under this grant from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Mercy Corps in partnership with World Vision is running the ‘Ensuring Nutrition, Transforming and Empowering Rural Farmers and Promoting Resilience in Zimbabwe (ENTERPRIZE) program which seeks to mobilise and support multi-stakeholder partnerships and community-based groups, grow local capacity, and work within existing systems to stimulate demand for and support equitable access to private and public products and services which contribute to lasting improvements in the productivity, profitability, resilience and nutrition of small holder farmers.

This program has been rolling out audio podcasting since November 2017. The content for these podcasts is developed by content development teams, from either of the two districts namely Guruve and Mt. Darwin and they comprise extension personnel from ministries of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development (MAMID). Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development (WAGCD) as well as the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MHCC).

The team meets once a month to gather technical information, develop script, critique the script and produce audio recordings Agriculture Extension officers have been at the forefront of using this method to reach out to as many community members and farmers as possible. Content review panels are responsible for developing scripts and audio recordings in line with the progression of the farming season, the nutrition behaviour change message for a particular month as well as monthly and yearly gender themes from a national context.

To-date, a total of 2, 148 smallholder farmers that is 1, 276 males and 872 females who produce cattle, goats, sugar bean, cowpea and groundnut have accessed nutrition, gender, agriculture production and marketing-oriented advisory information services through listening to at-least one audio podcast with a nutrition, gender, marketing or agriculture-oriented theme (Table 1 ).

Table 1: total number of participants accessing advisory tips through audio podcasts

Audio-podcasting is being used as a method to scale outreach and amplify technical advisory services provision. The e-extension method is being utilized as a way of complementing other extension advisory channels being utilized by the program.

The program officially handed over 19 sets of hardware equipment to the Ministry of Agriculture in Mt. Darwin and 11 sets of hard ware equipment to the same ministry in Guruve district. Even though the Crops and Livestock Production Department within MAMID are the custodians of the audio podcasting hardware equipment, the equipment is shared or used jointly with nutrition ward coordinators (NWCs) from the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare and ward development coordinators.

This has in the process contributed towards the integration of program components and nutrition and gender oriented issues in agriculture are being incorporated in advisory information disseminated via audio podcasts. Wards accessing audio podcasts services include 10 commercial value chain wards of Guruve District and 12 from Mt. Darwin District.

To date results gathered indicate that participants are accessing technical advisory services via podcasts during agricultural production meetings and community meetings at village and ward levels, some have also created agriculture development groups within their communities in which they meet to access information from the podcasts. A total of 26 audio podcasts with 7 focusing on nutrition, another 7 on gender and 12 being agriculture-oriented were developed and shared across the districts including for e-extension platforms such as WhatsApp groups for downstream dissemination to farming families.

Mr Chipfunde is one of the 21 smallholder farmers, 8 men and 13 women who form the Hurudza Farmer group in Guruve District, Zimbabwe. This group was formed to ensure farmers in this community have a communal village savings and loans platform and also a structure to learn and share best practices. Mr Chipfunde is excited about the podcasts that his group has managed to access which covered agricultural and nutritional information that they then invited the local Agricultural extension officer to do a presentation for their group.

“ I am learning ideas on how to turn my farming into a business with ideas from production to marketing and my wife is now a lead mother imparting knowledge on child health and nutrition gained from the podcasts to other mothers in this village and beyond” he says.

Improved access to a diverse pool of audio content among farmers is expected to accelerate provision and access to production and marketing information thereby increasing food security and enabling better livelihoods for smallholder farmers under this program.