Full Circle Associates

Another example of the power of conversation and bridging technologies from scidev-africa-oct04.pdf

A Cameroonian woman pulls a small, battered micro-cassette recorder from her bag and disappears into a cornfield, heading for a group of women working there. Beckoning an agricultural support worker to join the group, she begins to record the conversation. Martha Motoko Biongo is a local journalist specialising in gender and agriculture who works on a project entitled ‘Linking Agricultural Research and Rural Radio’. It seeks to use rural radio to communicate information about science and technologybased innovations emerging from agricultural research. The project was set up in 2000 as part of a wider regional initiative backed by the University of Guelph, Canada; the Developing Countries Farm Radio Network; Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

”The project empowers women and increases their access to agricultural technologies,’” she says. “It gives them better access to innovations, and challenges the subsistence agricultural roles they often have had to play.” It is based on the idea that strengthening partnerships between farmers, researchers and radio broadcasters allows women to become involved in dialogue about issues that can improve their lives.