After settling in the USA in the 1990s, Isaac Zama would visit his native Cameroon almost every year, until war broke out in late 2016, and it became too dangerous to go home. About that same time a new satellite TV company, the Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Corporation (SCBC), was formed to broadcast news and information in English. (Cameroon was formed from a French colony and part of a British one in 1961).
In 2018, Isaac approached SCBC to start a TV program on agriculture to help Southern Cameroonians who could no longer work as a result of the war, and the thousands of refugees who sought refuge in Nigeria. The broadcasters readily agreed. With his PhD in agriculture and rural development from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his roots in a Cameroonian village, Isaac was well placed to find content that farmers back home would appreciate. âI did some research on the Internet, and I found Access Agriculture,â said Isaac. âI liked it so much that I watched every single video.â
Isaac soon started a TV program, Amba Farmersâ Voice, which began to air every Sunday at 4 PM, Cameroon time. It is rebroadcast several times a week to give more people a chance to watch the program. With frequent power cuts many are not able to tune in on Sundays.
The program is broadcast live from Isaacâs studio in Virginia. He starts with a basic introduction in West African Pidgin. âIf Iâm going to show a video on rabbits, I start by explaining what a is rabbit,â Isaac explains. âAnd that we can learn from farmers in Kenya how to build a rabbit house, and to care for these animals.â After playing an Access Agriculture video on the topic (in English), Isaac comments on it in Pidgin, for the older, rural viewers who may not speak English. His remarks are carefully scripted, and based on background reading and research.
The show lasts an hour or more and allows Isaac to play several videos. Amba Farmersâ Voice has its own Facebook and YouTube pages. While his program is on the air, Isaac checks out the Facebook page to get an idea of how many people are watching. A popular topic like caring for rabbits may have 1,000 viewers just on Facebook. But most people watch the satellite broadcast. SCBC estimates that two to three million people watch Amba Farmersâ Voice in Cameroon, but many others also watch it in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and even in some Francophone countries, like Benin and Gabon.
Some farmers reciprocate, sending Isaac pictures and videos that they have shot themselves, showing off their own experiments, adapting the ideas from the videos to conditions in Cameroon. Isaac heard from one group of âmothers in the villageâ who showed how they were using urine to fertilize their corn, after watching an Access Agriculture video from Uganda.
People in refugee camps watched the video on sack mounds, showing how to grow vegetables in a large, soil-filled bag. But gunny sacks were scarce in the refugee camp, so people improvised, filling plastic bags with earth and growing tomatoes in them, so they could grow some food within the confines of the camp.
Isaac mentioned that people were installing drip irrigation after seeing the video from Benin about it.
âThat can be expensive,â I said. âPeople have to buy materials.â
âNot really,â Isaac answered. Gardeners take used drink bottles from garbage dumps, fill them with water, poke holes in the cap, and leave them to drip slowly on their plants.
After seeing the video from Benin on feeding giant African snails (for high-quality meat), one young man in the Southern Cameroons got used tires and stacked one on top of the other to make the snail pen. Itâs an innovation he came up with after watching the Access Agriculture video. He puts two tires in a stack, puts the snails in the bottom, and feeds them banana peels and other fruit and vegetable waste. Isaac tells his audience âWe donât need to buy anything. Just open your eyes and adapt. See what you can find to use.â
Solar dryers were another topic that people adapted from the videos. To save money, they made the dryers from bamboo, instead of wood, and shared one between several families. As a further adaptation, people are drying grass in the solar dryer. Access Agriculture has four videos on using solar dryers to preserve high value produce like pineapples, mangoes and chillies, but none show grass drying. Isaac explains that you sprinkle a little salt on the grass as you dry it. Then, in the dry season you put the grass in water and it turns fresh again. Now he is encouraging youth to form groups so they can dry grass to store, to sell to farmers when forage is scarce.
I was delighted to see so many local experiments, just from people who watch videos on television, with no extension support.
All of this interaction, between Isaac Zama and his compatriots, the teaching, feedback and organisation, is all happening on TV and online. He hasnât been to Cameroon since he started his program. Â Isaacâs interaction with his audience amazes me. Itâs a testimony to his talent, but also to the improved connectivity in rural Africa.
âPeople think that Africans donât have cell phones,â Isaac says, âbut 30% of the older farmers in villages have android phones. Their adult children, living in cities or abroad, buy phones for their parents so they can stay in touch and so they can see each other on WhatsApp.â Isaac adds that what farmers need now is an app so they can watch agricultural videos cheaper.
Dr. Isaac Zama wants to encourage other stations to broadcast farmer learning videos: âThose videos from Access Agriculture will revolutionize agriculture in Africa in two or three years, if our national leaders would just broadcast them on TV. The farmers would do it themselves, just from the information they can see on the videos.â Isaac is willing to collaborate with other TV stations across the world, to share his experience or to broadcast Amba Farmers Voice, but particularly with broadcasters in Africa who are interested in agricultural development
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Watch the Access Agriculture videos mentioned in this story
Using sack mounds to grow vegetables
Solar drying pineapples, Making mango crisps, Solar drying of kale leaves and Solar drying of chillies
