Building an agricultural extension services system supported by ICTs in Tanzania: Progress made, Challenges remain
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Date
2013-04
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Publisher
IJEDICT
Abstract
The conventional agricultural extension service in Tanzania is mainly provided by extension
officers visiting farmers to provide agricultural advisory service. This system of extension service
provision faces a number of challanges including the few number of extension officers and limited
resources. This article assessess the effectiveness of an impact-driven, radio-based extension
service delivery system that has been introduced in some rural areas of Tanzania. The system
aims to enable extension officers to reach many farmers with minimum efforts. However little is
known about the effectiveness of this new extension service delivery system. Structured
questionnaire, focus group discussion, interviews and participant observation were used to
collect data from 55 small holder farmers who who had been receiving an impact-driven, radio-
based extension services through Farmer Voice Radio project. Additional data were collected
from interviewing extension officers and from archives of participating community radio stations.
The results indicate that in some rural areas, farmers have started sharing agricultural information
and best practices. Some farmers have also started to change their farming practices. This brings
a new finding that farmers can adopt and practice easily what is aired by their fellow farmers in
the community radio stations.
Description
Keywords
radio based system, extension service, ICT, farmer radio voice, Farmer Voice Radio, radio farmer, community radio station