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Nigeria turns to two-way radio to get out climate news

by Maria Caspani | www.twitter.com/MariaCaspani85 | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Tuesday, 27 July 2010 15:03 GMT

LONDON (AlertNet) Â? Getting information on how to cope with climate change out to remote regions is rarely an easy task. But Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, a young Nigerian development specialist, has found a way: two-way Igbo-language radio.

Working in Nigeria's southeast Imo state, one of the nation's poorest, Ikegwuonu has created a radio network that not only allows residents to tune in for information, but sends reporters into the field to allow farmers to broadcast their own experiences live.

"Valuable information in international languages doesn't reach the smallest communities that have been cut off as a result of the collapse of agricultural extension and the lack of infrastructure," Ikegwuonu said in a phone interview with AlertNet.

"We are trying to fill this gap by broadcasting people's knowledge."

Imo state, a region of farmers and livestock herders, is suffering declining crop yields as a result of severe soil erosion, brought on by widespread deforestation and increasingly intense rainfall linked to climate change.

Data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization show that Nigeria's forests and woodlands have shrunk dramatically in recent years, from 20,000 hectares in 2000 to 16,600 hectares in 2005, the most recent figures available.

Ikegwuonu, who at 27 has already launched his own Smallholders Foundation, aims to ease that problem and others by bringing farmers better information.

Through Smallholders Farmers Rural Radio, five broadcasters provide farmers with daily market news, information on how to gain access to hybrid seeds and details on how to control soil erosion. They also visit communities to allow farmers to share their knowledge on agricultural techniques.

LOCAL LANGUAGE INFO

Most important, the service comes in the local Igbo language, the best way to reach the largest possible number of listeners.

"By acquiring new information through our broadcasting programmes, local farmers will hopefully increase both their crop yield and household income. This will allow children to go to school and families to afford good nutrition," Ikegwuonu said.

The radio project, started in 2007 under the UNESCO International Programme for the Development of Communication, is unique in Nigeria, and already reaches 250,000 people on a daily basis, its founder said.

He hopes eventually to reach 3.5 million people in almost 5,000 villages in the region.

"Radio is incredibly popular among the rural people," he said.

Imo state, once thickly planted with bamboo, rubber and palm trees, has lost much of its plantations and its original forest cover as population density has grown, forcing farmers into marginal land and forest areas.

That has contributed to changes in the local weather, with increasingly extreme downpours of rain contributing to worsening soil erosion, which threatens crops and infrastructure.

"We are currently broadcasting information on how farmers can cope with soil erosion and also how they can predict changes in weather patterns," Ikegwuonu said.

His team also has plans to produce a radio drama aimed at helping small farmers learn how to better manage the risks associated with growing crops in changing weather that swings from storms to droughts.

"We expect the climate change drama to reach some 15 million listeners and have a big impact on rural communities," he said.

TWO-WAY BROADCASTING

Perhaps most striking, Ikegwuonu's project has found a way around radio serving as a one-way delivery system by having broadcasters go into the field to allow farmers to directly broadcast their concerns and solutions to others.

"We wanted to make it a two way system, encouraging listeners to become active players in the programmes," Ikegwuonu said. "Information is much more appreciated and valued by the local people when it comes from them."

Broadcasters use interactive mobile radios, known as AIR devices, to draw information directly from people in the field and broadcast it on the spot to other listeners. The system means that people without mobile phones or without the resources to otherwise pay for calls can take part in radio shows.

"It works as a sort of walkie talkie Â? so that more listeners can send feedback to the radio station without incurring any cost," Ikegwuonu explained.

But the use of mobile phones in sending feedback is also growing among farmer communities. As in wealthier communities around the world, the phones are seen by farmers as a way to quickly contribute opinions about what they hear on the radio.

Ikegwuonu's Smallholders Foundation, launched in 2003, also works to improve access to micro-credit for farmers and offers mini courses on business and market research.

In 2009, it was named as one of the winners of the Development Marketplace Global Competition on Climate Change, funded by the World Bank, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and others partners, and received a share of $4.8 million in funding to reduce the effects of climate change on some of the most vulnerable communities in the developing world.

To view a video clip on the Smallholder Farmers Rural Radio project, please click below.

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