Project outcomes:

This project strengthened the supply chain by creating a dialogue with smallholders using radio, SMS and multi-stakeholder groups. Farmer listener group discussions provided the content for the year-long radio programme, based around the tea growing calendar. Wider issues were also addressed relating to other crops, health, family planning and financial management. Broadcast on local radio stations, the ‘Chai ni Mali’ (‘the Value of Tea’) programmes reached up to two million people. They are credited by local partners as contributing to the following outcomes:

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• Expansion of smallholder tea planting and more widespread adoption of fertiliser use

• 1.2MT increase in the volume of green leaf delivered to WATCO by smallholders 

• Set-up of RSTGA’s own radio station ‘Chai FM’, still broadcasting today using LYF principles 

Lebi Gabriel from RSTGA talked to Hannah Clark in June 2019 and told us 

“Farmers' Voice Radio has greatly impacted our community. The radio programmes are still ongoing. Because of Chai ni Mali it is normal now to hear farmers discussing about the quality and most of the challenges that they are having in tea. Even if they are happening in one part of the district it is very easy to hear now other farmers discussing the same, because through the radio station you can reach farmers so easily and quickly. 

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Radio is the major way of communicating to rural communities. In rural areas radio is the number one mass communication for farmers and rural people. Therefore, whatever you do on radio station, and if it is well planned, really taking care of the cultural and traditional way of communicating with the rural people, it has a very big impact. That’s the feedback we are getting from farmers.”