Agroecological Videos Bolivia

Lead Organization:

Agro-Insight

Partner Organizations:

AGRECOL Andes, Prosuco, and PROINPA

Community of Practice:

Andes

Countries:

Bolivia

Duration:

11/2022—11/2023

Overview:

CCRP grantees innovate in response to smallholders’ real needs. Getting their ideas to more farm families, however, can be hampered by grantees’ lack of experience in relevant techniques (e.g., producing quality training videos), of an extension mandate, or of personnel. Farmer-to-farmer videos can bridge this gap.

Agro-Insight produces videos using the ZIZO (zooming-in, zooming-out) method, which identifies a topic of broad geographical relevance (e.g., managing aflatoxins or creating agroecological markets) and zooms in on the problem by developing videos with farmers who have adapted ideas from research. Videos are scaled up (zoomed out) by translating and distributing them widely (Van Mele, 2006).

Farmers in Uganda adopted rice cultivation techniques after watching a video series filmed in Bangladesh and West Africa. Smallholders in Benin who watched these videos once could remember the content five years later and had tried the practices (Van Mele et al., 2016). Farmers in Mali who viewed the “Fighting Striga” videos in 2012 adopted climate-smart Striga control technologies such as crop rotation and intercropping and, by 2016, their cereal yields were 14 to 30 percent higher (Zoundji et al., 2018).

A recent online survey found that at least 90 million people have watched videos on the Access Agriculture website. Most are farmers, extensionists, and educators. The videos are so good that media people show them on TV or play the soundtracks on the radio (Bentley et al., 2022).

In 2016, Agro-Insight, as part of the CCRP-funded project Videos for Farmers, produced two videos in Bolivia: “Managing Aflatoxins in Groundnuts” and “Growing Lupine Without Disease.” CCRP grantees in Bolivia screened the videos in communities.

In 2018, Agro-Insight filmed three more videos (on Pachagrama, Weather Underground, and live barriers) with McKnight grantees in Bolivia. Grantees use these videos widely. Agro-Insight made an extra video on a beneficial wasp that protects quinoa from pests.

In 2019, Agro-Insight wrote scripts on four topics (rotational grazing, schools, pastures, and native potatoes) with McKnight grantees in Peru, filming in 2022. Those videos have been edited and finalized. Also in 2022, Agro-Insight filmed four videos (helpful insects, women leaders, seed potato, and agroecological fair) with CCRP grantees in Ecuador. Those videos debuted at the CCRP CoP meeting in Ecuador in July 2022.

Grant Aims:

The overall goal is to disseminate R&D results of McKnight grantees in Bolivia by producing and sharing three high-quality farmer-learning videos in collaboration with selected grantees. Topics may include marketing agroecological produce, making and using bioles, or managing potato tuber moth.

A further goal is to translate relevant, existing videos on AEI from other countries to enrich the collaborative research process by grantees.

Specifically, the project seeks to:

  1. Select topics for videos in coordination with the CCRP/Andes and grantees.
  2. Write three fact sheets and three draft video scripts at a writeshop facilitated by Agro-Insight.
  3. Produce three videos.
  4. Translate the three videos—and seven additional ones produced in other countries—into Spanish, Quechua, and Aymara.
  5. Make videos available to McKnight and grantees in various formats.
  6. Publish videos in public domain in several languages on accessagriculture.org.

Outputs and Outcomes:

Outputs

  • Grantees better able to articulate their achievements and research results for having worked on the scripts, fact sheets, and videos (e.g., through farmer interviews, grantees see how community members have taken ownership of and benefited from technical and social ideas)
  • Grantees gain enhanced perception of farmer creativity by working on videos highlighting farmer innovation and community participation in social aspects of food systems
  • Videos form part of public record of McKnight-funded R&D on AEI, documenting grantees’ research results for a larger audience in a highly accessible, easy-to-watch format
  • Grantees more effectively sharing their research results with target audiences in the Ecuadorian Andes
  • McKnight grantees in Peru and Ecuador using the Bolivia videos in their own outreach
  • Videos made with farmers on AEI in other countries supporting South-South learning and broadening ideas for collaborative research by McKnight grantees

Outcomes

  • Enhanced knowledge of AEI in Andes CoP
  • Audiovisual documentation and sharing of some McKnight Foundation achievements
  • Improved welfare of farmers in Bolivia, the Andes, and elsewhere who watch the videos and are inspired by the content to innovate