Quality farmer training videos to support South–South learning

The Internet and mobile phone services have enabled farmers across developing countries to pro-actively seek information themselves. However, the key problem is little content of relevance. This paper compares two complementary models, namely access agriculture and digital green, that enable farmers’ access to training videos. The paper then elaborates on the Access Agriculture model, as one that supports South–South learning between farmers. Careful attention to content, style and format during video production results in quality videos that are eagerly used by any organisation, TV or radio station. Translated upon demand into any local language, the use of quality training videos is highly cost-effective. Five years after being established, the Access Agriculture video platform hosts over 175 farmer training videos in 75 languages for anyone to view and download for free. About 44% of the nearly 200,000 visitors to the video platform come from Africa, and 23% from Asia. The percentage of people accessing the video platform via their mobile has increased from 30% in 2016 to 42% in 2018. Farmers are the largest professional group registering to the platform to download videos, fact sheets and audio files. Small livestock, vegetable production and food processing are popular topics, appealing to rural women and youth in particular. While smallholder farmers need relevant content, this does not mean that all training materials have to be developed locally. The growing body of evidence of cross-cultural, farmer-to-farmer learning is steadily changing this misperception. Examples are given of cost-recovery and private sector engagement in distributing, selling and showing quality videos hosted on the Access Agriculture platform. The paper ends by providing key lessons learned and challenges to support South–South learning between farmers at a scale previously unseen.