How Internet Bypasses Ugandan Farmers

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Jennifer Bakyawa
Kampala

When Uganda joined the internet bandwagon less than a decade ago it
had hopes of delivering important information to farmers. It hasn't
worked out that way: much of the information bypasses farmers (many
of them are too poor to access the internet) and there is a general
lack of coherence in the way they are presented.

It's been less than a decade since Uganda - along with scores of
other developing countries - began using the Internet as a means of
delivering agricultural information to farmers. Now there is
increasing evidence that the technology remains beyond the reach of
many farmers.

In the late 1990s, it seemed like a good idea - and a cheap one too -
to extend the Internet to rural Uganda. Several donors
enthusiastically jumped on the Internet bandwagon and funded
websites and telecentres catering to farmers.

Experts argued that improving farmers' access to the latest
agricultural information through modern technologies would increase
agricultural production - without information on markets farmers
were unable to decide what crops to grow, which in turn lowered
their power to bargain for better prices.

Across the country, telecentres were established - a typical one had
one or two computers and telephone lines set up in a small room.
Farmers had to subscribe to be members.

Now a paper written by researchers at the International Institute
for Communication and Development at The Hague says that although
the Internet has "drastically changed" the information landscape in
the field of agriculture and natural resources, the information is
scattered across the Internet and not organised in a way most
relevant to farmers.

The targeted users, such as small farmers, often have problems
finding and accessing relevant information in usable formats, the
researchers say.

Emily Arayo, media liaison officer at the International Institute of
Tropical Agriculture (IITA), a nongovernmental organisation in
Kampala agrees: "Most information exchange is between research
scientists. It is information for researchers, policy makers and
decision-makers. For farmers the information needs to be broken down
to what is directly relevant to them."

The paper, Fertile Grounds: Opportunities For Greater Coherence In
Agricultural Information Systems with case studies of Ghana,
Tanzania and Uganda, says, "International services do not always
link with national information networks, and therefore information
is either duplicated, not available or cannot be found by the
intended audience."

"We are not kidding ourselves that farmers are using the Internet -
we know they are not!" says Emmet Murphy, deputy programme manager
of ACDI-VOCA (Agricultural Cooperative Development International-
Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance), an international non-
profit development group that provides technical assistance,
training and support in agriculture.

Over 80 percent of Uganda's population is engaged in agriculture.

The paper notes that many current service providers maintain data
collections which tend to exist in isolation from complementary
services provided by others. The government's National Agricultural
Research Organisation, for instance, has an outreach initiative
which aims at making direct contact with farmers' groups, but it is
not working with the IITA which is helping farmers set up such
groups.

This lack of collaboration in the agricultural sector, it says, has
led to a large quantity of unlinked information systems. As a
result, some projects have lost momentum and a number of websites
and online databases have become empty, without up-to-date content.

It is not as if the Internet is not serving rural Uganda. ACDI-VOCA
sponsors a website called Foodnet - run by the IITA - which has post-
harvest and market research information on 28 key commodities. The
information itself comes from IITA workers, who collect data from
the main district markets and sub-county markets.

The IITA also prepares radio scripts and chat-shows for farmers
which are broadcast on local radio stations. The IITA radio service
and Foodnet currently cover 32 of Uganda's 56 districts.

The problem, says Kevin Semmanda, senior information scientist in
the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, is that
most farmers do not have direct access to the Internet: "The
telecentres have had little impact. Very few farmers have the means
and knowledge of accessing the Internet." If you are not a paid
member, you have to pay for each visit.

Arayo says farmers normally get the information they need from
secondary sources such as extension workers and radio programmes.
Given Uganda's low literacy level (62 percent, according to the
World Bank), it is very difficult for them to benefit directly from
the Internet. Besides, the main language of the Internet is English,
whereas there are some 20 indigenous local languages spoken in
Uganda.

Moses Were, 33, a peasant farmer in Mukona district in central
Uganda, acknowledges that the Internet has uses - timely and
accessible market information, he says, could help "eliminate many
middlemen." Were, who has been growing cocoa, vanilla and coffee for
10 years, is literate but cannot afford to buy a computer - and in
any case, there is no electricity in his house.

Arayo says the National Agricultural Advisory Services, a government
agency, regularly puts up farming information on notice boards at
its sub-county offices, but admits there is no guarantee farmers
will see it. It is far more useful for extension workers to collate
information from Foodnet and deliver it to farmers.

Experts agree that the lack of access to information is directly
related to rural poverty. But although the Ugandan government's Plan
for Modernisation of Agriculture identifies providing farmers with
market information as a priority it does not specify how this is to
be done.

Joseph Mukasa Mpaga, a 72-year-old farmer, says he does not rely on
the Internet for market prices. There is only one Internet kiosk in
his village of Kasawo, some 120 km from Kampala, and he cannot
afford to pay for it. Rather he and his colleagues get the latest
market prices from other farmers returning from the Kampala market.

David Luwandagga, Kampala's data collector for the IITA maintains
that reaching information from the Internet is vital for all sorts
of reasons - for instance, when farmers in a certain region learn
that their counterparts elsewhere are receiving a better price
because of the quality of their produce, they will try and achieve
the same standards. It is also vital for building food security by
sounding early warnings of drought.

At the moment, a variety of media appear to be servicing farmers'
needs in Uganda - farmers in Masindi district in western Uganda
refuse to sell their products to traders until they have listened to
the radio bulletin about prices. Semmanda says rather than focussing
on the Internet alone, agricultural officers should also use video,
music, drama and radio to strengthen the extension system.

"Radio moves faster than the Internet," agrees Arayo. "It also takes
care of the language problem."

http://allafrica.com/stories/200501060817.html