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Moderated conference on rural advisory services for family farms: 1-18 December 2014

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Wed, 17 Dec 2014 15:37:25 +0100
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This is Ngouambe Nestor, again.

One of the missions of agricultural extension and advisory service is to provide proper information and other services required by farmers for their activities. The mobile phone is thus used as a communication tool to achieve this mission and reach a large mass of farmer living in remote areas. Despite the remoteness of Fondonéra (village in West Cameroon), farmers continued to benefit from remote coaching via their mobile phone. Dissemination of information on the markets/prices and opportunities are made by voice calls and SMS. A positive assessment is seen as it links farmers and other stakeholders (suppliers and traders). Women have proven that they are well anchored to the current technology. Despite the low level of education that limits the use of SMS service, there is a lack of ICT infrastructure that limits access to all GSM signal. The Government of Cameroon in partnership with mobile phone operators in both the public and private sector must be involved to make available the adequate infrastructure to facilitate the daily use of mobile phones by farmers and extension workers.

The favorable determinants of mobile phone use in agriculture extension and advisory service in West Cameroon: In the study area, three main factors are critical for setting up a mentoring service through the mobile phone: 
the dynamism of farmers; awareness of the use of the phone as farming tools; and youth farmers, including women. 

The population is very dynamic and organized into Common Initiative Group (ICG), each leader has at least one mobile phone. This facilitated the exchange of information within the group and between other groups. A similar case was observed in Indonesia, Uganda and Zimbabwe where the phone application in extension has fostered collaboration and exchange between farmers (see the APC's (Association for Progressive Communications) Gender, Agriculture and Rural Development in the Information Society (GenARDIS) project - http://genardis.apcwomen.org/en).

The respondents have already warned of the importance of mobile phones in production because, according to Shanmugavelan and Wariock (2004), producers are increasingly eager to use the mobile phone for their activities. It would simply strengthen their capacity to its appropriation. In the same vein, this study shows that about 90% of producers use their phones to communicate with suppliers and/or other farmers. This rightly shows that they are already aware of the importance of these communication tools.

About 70% of farmers have less than 40 years, including 36 years for women. We can conclude that youth is a key factor in the promotion of ICTs in agriculture. In Benin, for example, GenARDIS showed that women are more aware of the opportunities offered by ICT including mobile phone for their activities. While in Cameroon more than 72% of farmers consider their phones as key tools for communication with buyers. Although O'Farell (2003) had thought that women are likely to remain on the sidelines of ICT opportunities even more, they have a limited access to agricultural extension and advisory services. Meanwhile  they have nevertheless an important role to play in promoting the use of the phone for agricultural household activities.

Ngouambe Nestor
Agricultural Extension officer
Ministry of agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER) 
Programme National de Vulgarisation et de Recherche Agricole (PNVRA) 
BP 46 Dschang
Cameroun
Tel: +237 77 62 41 21 / 79 71 78 09
Skype: manuel.rayan
YPARD Cameroon team: www.ypard.net
AFAAS Cameroon Team: www.afaas-africa.org Cameroon Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (CAMFAAS)
Blogpost:- https://ngouambe.wordpress.com
             - http://agriculture-infos.blogspot.com
e-mail: Ngouambe (at) gmail.com

References:
- O'FARRELL C (2003). Gender and agriculture in the information society. Oral presentation at the 6th consultative expert meeting of CTA observatory on ICT. Wageningen, Netherlands: CTA. 
- SHANMUGEVELAN M and WARIOCK K. (2004). Completing the revolution: the challenge of rural telephony in Africa. London, United Kingdom: Banos Institute.
http://panos.org.uk/wp-content/files/2011/03/completing_the_revolutionaKnJmM.pdf (1 MB)

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