Last Tuesday, myAgro’s marketing officer – 24-year old Aminata Kasse, plus a radio announcer from the Sanankoroba station and I bounced down dirt roads to meet with myAgro farmer Odiouma Doumbia on his fields. We met Mr. Doumbia while he was harvesting corn, slicing through stalks with a machete and tossing them into neat pyramid-shaped bundles to dry on his field. He took a break to talk with us under a Shea nut tree. Aminata had briefed the radio announcer in the car, reviewing her interview script asking why Mr. Doumbia had been the first myAgro farmer in his village to enroll for the next season. The announcer held his mic up to Mr. Doumbia, and the farmer told the audience of myAgro’s weekly radio show why he thinks they should make savings payments as early as possible: if you spread your savings payments out over a longer season, you can reach your savings goal “little by little.” The earlier you start, the smaller and more manageable your payments can be. We thanked the farmer and drove back to the radio station, where the announcer will edit the recorded interview and air it during the week. “Temoignage,” French for bearing witness, is myAgro’s strongest farmer outreach tool. Farmers listen to other farmers who they know and respect. They often find fellow farmers hold even more credibility than the expert evidence our agents present in meetings, which they can’t easily verify on their own. Fellow farmers who adopt new practices—like myAgro’s savings plan—act as village-wide test plots, allowing neighbors to compare yields against their own harvests, which they know occurred under similar cultural and agricultural conditions. Technologies like radio can give farmers access to advice from outside experts who’d otherwise never make it to their remote village. Perhaps most important, though, is how we can use these technologies to boost farmers’ ability to share their experiences with each other. Aminata’s radio program centers myAgro farmers as experts on myAgro. Other farmers are already watching and listening—now we’re making it easier to hear them.
