Josephine Rodgers, Executive Director, Access Agriculture, delivering a presentation on “Scaling agroecology with quality training videos and ICT tools” at the special webinar marking the 10th anniversary of Access Agriculture titled “How to scale agroecology,” organised jointly by Access Agriculture and the Agroecology Coalition on 25 October 2022. Watch here : https://www.ecoagtube.org/content/how-scale-agroecology-0 Listen to Podcast : https://accessagriculture.podbean.com/e/how-to-scale-agroecology/

1. Scaling agroecology with quality
training videos and ICT tools

2. Challenges
✘ Ecological knowledge is complex and hard to share
✘ Few youth and women are reached through face-to-face extension

3. Seed and biodiversity
Domínica Cantorín – Peru: “We conserve the varieties from
our ancestors so that they are not lost. Because we have
different varieties with different flavours and colours. They are
all different and we have to keep conserving them to feed
ourselves and our kids who come after us.”

4. Reviving soil health
Jayalalitha – India: “I only use plastic containers. Metal
containers interfere with the good microbes and may spoil the
fermentation. If we use a clay pot, the solution will leak out
through the small pores, and this will attract ants and insects.”

5. Intercropping with legumes and trees
Vincent Ssonko – Uganda: “Another benefit is that the worms
that bring fertility in our soil do not die of hot weather
conditions as they stay in a cool environment. The pineapples
make shade and the bananas make shade. And me to, I like
shade when I am working.”

6. Animal health
Kalavati Jadhav – India: “When the excrement of chickens
is red and shows signs of worms, we know the chickens
have internal worms. To prevent this, we give chickens the
extract of boiled peel of pomegranate.”

7. Governance and local food systems
Jane Ngina Mugo – Kenya: “We started drying kale leaves
because all farmers were planting kale and we had excess
supply on the market leading to a drop in the price. Some of
the kale ended up being thrown away because there was just
too much.”

8. Creating digital content with local partners

9. Videos made available in nearly 100 mainly local languages

10. Building an ecosystem of digital tools

12. On the social media video platform EcoAgtube, ‘project’ managers can:
• Group all videos related to a project
• Designate others to upload videos within the project
• Manage their own project’s viewer analytics

13. The Access Agriculture app
Farmers can re-watch videos,
share and learn at their own pace

14. The Digisoft smart projector has the
entire Access Agriculture video library
offline and can be powered from solar.

15.  Creating quality training videos that can be
translated takes time, but this allows farmers to
understand and then take their own decisions
 By using local languages we can cross barriers and
reach those - like women - who are hardest to reach
with knowledge that can change lives and livelihoods
 No single technology will scale agroecology, we need
an ecosystem of digital tools with quality content to
explain and inspire

16. Josephine Rodgers jo@accessagriculture.org
www.accessagriculture.org www.ecoagtube.org