16 individuals representing 13 organisations working with smallholder farmers in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, Ghana and India secured places on the inaugural Farmers’ Voice Radio Academy, running between March and May 2022. Over the course of four online group training sessions and two individual coaching sessions, participants gained the skills, knowledge and tools to design and deliver participatory radio programming in their own context. Each graduated with a fully developed and costed Farmers’ Voice Radio programme plan to take forward for resourcing and implementation.

 

Recognising that access to finance can be the biggest barrier to new initiatives, at the end of the course a start-up grant competition was opened to all Academy graduates with the intention of providing seed funding to the best Farmers' Voice Radio (FVR) Programme Concepts, to help get their radio programmes underway. Seven applications were received and assessed against pre-agreed criteria by members of the Lorna Young Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Out of a very strong field, two FVR Programme Concepts really stood out as embracing the Farmers’ Voice Radio values and approach and demonstrating a clear response to a need evidenced by consultation with their target audience.

 

The organisations who received grants were:

​

• Kajulu Hills Ecovillages based in Kisumu, Kenya, whose radio programmes are improving the sustainability of farming in the Nyanza region through increasing knowledge and practice in regenerative farming. Here is a blog about the Kajula Hills Ecovillages radio programme.

​​

• Amani Community Center in Tana River, Kenya, who are using Farmers’ Voice Radio on their community station Vox Radio (formerly Amani FM) to enhance peaceful coexistence between crop and pastoralist farmers in the region and to support the economic empowerment of community members.

 

Fatma Mzee, Operations Director of Vox Radio, said: “After going through the Farmers’ Voice Radio Academy, as a journalist I feel capacitated and the need to have the programme run at our radio station to foster change in the way our community does its farming activities. Better practices will in turn lead to better yields and market access...”

 

You can find out more information about all the 2022 Academy Graduates Farmers’ Voice Radio Programme Concepts below: