According to estimates from the International Fund for Agricultural Development, as much as 80% of all farmers in sub-Saharan Africa farm less than two hectares of land, which in some countries accounts for as much as 90% of the total agricultural output. Despite this, roughly one in four of Africa's close to 1 billion people are undernourished. Why this is the case is obviously a complex issue that includes a whole host of contributing factors, such as government policies, poor infrastructure, limited access to credit, resources and information, civil strife, and others. All told, the result of all of these factors has resulted in farm yields in Africa that are among the lowest in the world. Without significant changes, undernourishment and poverty will continue to be a persistent inhibitor to economic development across the continent.
While there is no one solution to this problem, there are actions that development organisations can take to support agricultural productivity growth. One of the most immediate relates to providing farmers with increased access to information. In many cases, farm yields are low not because improved practices do not exist, but because farmers are unaware of them — either entirely or practically. The good news is that we know that increased access to best practices leads to positive results. Research by the International Food Policy Research Institute in Ethiopia, for example, has found that receiving at least one extension visit reduces headcount poverty by 9.8% points and increases consumption growth by 7.1%. Other studies have found even greater rates of return for extension, varying from 13% up to 500%.
If we know this, then why aren't extension services being provided to all farmers? The answer is simple. Qualified extension agents cannot be everywhere at once, they can be expensive to train and maintain, and it costs money to travel from village to village. Technology, however, is changing this equation.
The rapid expansion of mobile phones throughout the world, including in Africa, and its potential to completely alter how information is exchanged has been well documented. For development practitioners who have long struggled with how to cost effectively share and collect information, the mobile revolution is a blessing. But SMS and voice messages alone are not going to teach a farmer how to properly sow field using a new technique, how to best care for cattle, or any other number of techniques that need a visual reference point. Thankfully, the same advancements in computing hardware that have led to cheap and available mobile phones, have also given us $100 (£64) camcorders, $200 battery-operated pocket projectors, and $350 laptops.
Practitioners can now establish their own movie studios and portable movie theatres to create and disseminate extension videos, all using equipment that costs less than $800. These videos are not replacing extension agents, but rather complementing them. Videos can now be created with and by extension agents and farmers showing improved practices or techniques and disseminated to dozens of farmers at a time. Where there are few extension agents, the videos can be shown by farmer group leaders, supply agents, or lower level field staff. Rather than bringing farmers to visit a model farmer's field, it brings the field to the farmers. This is particularly important because it facilitates sharing between farmers, in addition to top-down sharing from extension agents to farmers.
When done well, the results can be impressive. In fact, research by Digital Green, an organisation supporting the use of low-cost video in India, Ethiopia and Ghana, has found it to be 10 times more effective per dollar spent on a cost-per-adoption basis than traditional extension services alone. Imagine then, what the impact could be if every agricultural development organisation had the capacity to use low-cost video to complement their existing services? What if, for example, like research by Agro-insight in Bangladesh found, yields could be increased by 15% through the power of video alone?
This is not to say that low-cost video is a panacea. It is not appropriate in all situations, and it is not as simple as just putting the technology in people's hands. It requires adequate planning, the right storytelling, recording, and editing techniques, and technical understanding of the equipment. While this may seem intimidating to some, it is important to remember that the goal is not to create Hollywood quality movies, but rather to be able to create decent quality videos that effectively achieve their learning objective. This process is being made easier by toolkits such as the USAid's Integrating Low-cost Video into Agricultural Development Projects, which are helping practitioners to use video in a way that enables them to achieve their goals and increase impact.
What's more exciting is that using locally created, low-cost video is still in a fairly nascent stage. As technology costs fall — and an increasing number of farmers have access to video-enabled smartphones — it is likely that it will drastically alter how we view agricultural extension. That future is already on its way, it is just a matter of how we engage with it.