Category: Inspiration

Diffusion of Innovation (DoI) theory is one of the oldest theories in social science that developed over time to explain how an idea or a new product gains a momentum and diffuses or spreads through a specific social system or population. Developed by E.M. Rogers, the theory states that the key to adoption is that the person must perceive the idea, product or suggested behaviour as innovative and useful. The theory also explores how the adoption does not happen simultaneously in a social system.

At Digital Green we have been able to observe this theory in practice and also document it to a large extent. Digital Green is a global development organization that has been training rural communities to produce videos on best practices related to agriculture, livestock management. Frontline extension workers from within the same community also trained by Digital Green disseminate these localized videos among the smallholder farming communities who depend on agriculture and livestock for their sustenance.

In less than a decade of its existence, Digital Green has reached over 1.6 million smallholder farmers across South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and the approach has been found to be seven times more effective and 10 times more cost-effective than traditional extension systems. The participatory video based peer-to-peer social behaviour change communication approach has been a classic example of the DoI theory.

Since the topics of the videos were originally based on the immediate requirement of the smallholder farmers in the particular location the sequence of the videos were often too scattered and disparate. In an attempt to constantly improve our approach we wanted to assess the impact on agricultural productivity if farmers saw a series of videos covering all the critical steps of a crop’s value chain. We called this a Package of Practice (PoP).

Over a period of one year, we developed sequential videos for three crops, namely, chilli, pigeon pea and potato. We also experimented with three styles of videos to test interest and adoption among the viewers. We followed it up with a qualitative study to understand the impact of the new styles of the videos, the interest level, and desire to adopt and ease of adoption. We conducted this study through observation of the dissemination and follow up questions as well as focus group discussions with various women’s self-help groups (SHGs) and frontline workers (FLWs) in three districts of Jharkhand, namely Latehar, Giridih and Pakur where our sequential videos were being disseminated by the FLWs in their respective SHGs.

This study threw up some very interesting observations that we found extremely useful to share with fellow practitioners who may potentially want to gain insight into what works for the community or not – be it the inclusion of folk music or voice over’s or showcasing demo plots or even the speed of the narration.

The study captures some important challenges that must be borne in mind as well as a few recommendations that would help improve the approach.

Access the detailed study on this link.

 

“Watching the videos helps us to retain the information we see,” said Vijay Lakshmi, a smallholder farmer from the arid region of Andhra Pradesh in India. “When someone tells you, you tend to forget, but when you see it, it is in your mind for a long time.”

Lakshmi is a happy and welcoming middle-aged woman from Bollovaram village, a small community that depends on agriculture. She and her husband have farming in their blood. Even their grown children are both farmers. This lifestyle is so ingrained, she, her husband and their son all became Community Resource People for a National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) project, and now continue under the Department of Agriculture, Government of Andhra Pradesh.

In partnership with the NRLM, Digital Green is helping to train Community Resource People in video recording and facilitated screenings, so they can build the capacity of farmers to pull themselves out of poverty.

 

Coming from a farming community, Lakshmi understood a good deal about farming in her area, but in the past, like most the farmers in the area, she used the techniques her neighbors used, which included using chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Using this method meant she had to go into debt at the beginning of the season to buy the inputs, so she could plant her crops. After she sold her harvest, the debt had to be paid back.

“We were spending 20,000 rupees for chemicals. After the harvest, we paid that amount back to the agro-dealer, so we basically broke even,” Lakshmi explained. “My husband was upset about the amount we were spending. He proposed the idea to start farming organically, but the family did not support him because it was not a common practice in the village. They did not want to risk their only income by switching to organic farming.”

Lakshmi’s husband finally convinced them that it was not much of a risk because as it was, they were barely making any profit using the chemicals. They started slowly and it wasn’t easy at first. The family began to learn about organic farming from their neighbors, community resource people, and the video screenings. They started with an intercropping system. That year, there was a crop failure across the district, but using the organic methods paid off. They were able to yield 10 quintals of cotton. That made them realize the power of organic farming.

For the last five years, they have been using completely organic methods. They no longer go to the fertilizer shop. She saw videos on how to prepare botanical extracts, and how they help with pest management. They began to grow red gram (lentils) through these organic methods. They also use the post-harvesting techniques they saw in the videos for the lentils.

Through the project, the Community Resource People work with local smallholder farmers to produce videos on agricultural techniques and best practices for getting the most yield out of the locally grown crops. The videos are then screened to groups of farmers, during which questions and dialogue are encouraged. The Community Resource People then follow up with the farmers to see how they are implementing those techniques and the results the farmers see.

“We are selling the lentils now,” said Lakshmi. “The other farmers, using the chemical methods, are getting 70-80 rupees per kg and we are getting 120 rupees per kg. People now know the value of naturally grown grains and are willing to pay extra.”

Lakshmi and her family have seen the possibilities of these methods and became Community Resource People. They are all working across different districts promoting these natural farming practices among other farmers even in other states.

Radha Devi and her husband, Dasrath Mahto belong to Rengalbeda village in Manoharpur block of West Singhbhum district, Jharkhand, India. Being small-scale farmers they depended on agricultural produce from a small farmland and a cycle repairing shop, their only source of income until 2014. Meeting expenses of the school for our children, Umesh and Priya, means we are always a bit stretched for money, shared Radha Devi. So as a supplementary source of income they tried rearing goats. However high death rates among the goats meant this was not a profitable venture either for them or others in their village.

In the year 2014 Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society (JSLPS) was expanding its work in the area. They were selecting women from every village to be trained as Ajeevika Pashu Sakhis (APS). Radha Devi applied and got selected as well.

Radha Devi was trained as an APS in September 2014 and started her work in the field of Goatery. Initially, her husband was a little apprehensive about her work and doubted if she could manage. He also tried to stop her from working thinking that she may be blamed for the death of other peoples goats. But Radha Devi was not fazed. She de-wormed her own goats at first and all ten goats continued to be healthy. This instilled a lot of confidence in her and her husband. The villagers too needed a lot of coaxing and trust-building and Radha Devi did not give up easily. Her hard work had developed faith of villagers on her and they started calling her for examining their goats and poultry.

In April 2015 Radha Devi went on an exposure visit to the Goat Trust in Lucknow during a training, which further enriched her experience and profile. I had never been out of my village before this visit and had never been on a train before, shared Radha Devi.
In January 2016, she received the second level of training from JSLPS along with the training on Digital Greens approach and facilitated dissemination of videos.

Video dissemination and facilitation training have changed my approach to interacting with villagers. I am now using JSLPS-DG videos to disseminate knowledge. This made my work easy. People adopt the practice more easily after watching the video, she shared.
More and more families have now started rearing goats in our village now. 15 new families have started rearing goats this year, taking the total number of goat rearers in our village to 55. Poultry rearing has also become popular, with a total of 84 families of which 14 started this year, shared a proud Radha Devi.

The volume of her work has also increased compared to last year. This year alone she has de-wormed 700 goats; and vaccinated 600 goats, which is the record vaccination by an individual APS this year in JSLPS. As a result, there is a sharp decline in the death rates among goats and poultry and the villagers are happy with her work.

Radha Devi is happy and content while sharing, No doubt, goat rearing has added to the livelihood of villagers. Now the village is recognized for goats and people come directly to the village to buy the goats and villagers need not even go to market.
Apart from this, goat rearing has decreased the dependency of villagers on cow dung manure and everybody in the village is using goat excreta as compost in agriculture. Radha Devi has 31 goats of her own. The population of goat in her village has grown from 300 to 704 today and that of poultry is 1,300 with minimal or no deaths.

 

Working as an APS, I earn INR 3,500-4,000 on an average every month, which is an additional income to my family. I spend this money to buy milk for my kids and in their schooling, She shared with pride. Apart from this, my work has earned me a lot of social respect and now every villager recognizes my contribution, she adds.

When Haima Manjari Mahanta, a woman from Naikapani village of Pallahara block in Angul district of Odisha joined a Self- Help Group (SHG), she could hardly imagine that one day she would be instrumental in bringing smiles to the faces of many farm families in her village.

Haima decided to join Maa Kusumunali SHG in 2011 to meet the medical needs of her family. She became the president of the group within a very short span of time, surpassing many older women in the group because of her dedication and commitment towards various group level processes. She never hesitates to take initiative and because she demonstrated her leadership skills in many instances, she became the voice of many other SHGs in her village.

In 2012, she applied for the position of Community Resource Person (CRP) as a part of the Targeted Rural Initiative for Poverty Termination and Infrastructure, A world bank supported project (TRIPTI) and qualifyied and was appointed as CRP in her own village. She was responsible for encouraging and enrolling all the households under SHG structure. During that period she formed, nurtured and strengthened 10 new SHGs. In 2015, TRIPTI project was merged with Odisha Livelihood Mission (OLM) and Haima was re-appointed in the role of a CRP. As a part of her new responsibilities, she started promoting improved agricultural practices among the group members to enhance farm level income from agriculture. This proved challenging for her, since she had no training in conducting training on agriculture for the members due to her own limited exposure and knowledge on agriculture. I still remember those days. It was a difficult to convince the farmers to adopt any new agriculture practice due to my own limited knowledge on the subject, shared Haima.

Haimas relief can be seen in the broad smile on her face while narrating her experience of using the Digital Green (DG) approach when OLM started a partnership project with DG in her block during the early part of the year 2016. My task of promoting agricultural practices has become easier since then and convincing people to adopt them is no more difficult, shared Haima.

Digital Green trained Haima on the various processes involved while disseminating a video, including how to operate a pico projector and facilitate discussion during dissemination. She was quite excited to see and operate a pico projector for the first time during the training.

Haima shared that she has already disseminated 8 videos among 15 SHGs in her own village. Since she was already recognised in the community for her good work and due to her good facilitation skills, many of her group members have adopted at least one practice that they have seen in the videos. She has reported more than 450 adoptions among the members till date. Haima says that she is able to give ample time to other SHG related work since promoting agricultural practices through video based extension system has made her task easier and faster, instead of the practice of going door-to-door or farm-to-farm. She brings two groups together and disseminates a micro practice to 20 to 25 members within an hour. Before every dissemination, she watches the video 2 to 3 times at home to familiarize herself with the content, know the places where she needs to stop and initiate discussion and prepare for all possible questions that the viewers might ask during dissemination.

Haima is happy that she is able to add quality to her work as well as improve the rate of adoption, which has become more than twice of what she could achieve lasting the previous year when she was trying to convince the farmers without the videos. Haima shares with conviction that the factors contributing to her success are the visual medium of dissemination, local videos featuring local farmers as actors, the local dialect and the timely dissemination of the videos, i.e. during the actual time of practice.

Debaki Mahanta, another woman from the same village and a member of Maa Kusumunali SHG who regularly participates in video dissemination says that these videos have been of great help to all the farmers in the village to understand, remember and adopt the practice. And most importantly the facilitation by Haima during the video dissemination helps them to get new learning and clarify their doubts at the same time. Debaki appreciates Haima’s effort and encouragement to all the members to adopt the practices shown in the video. Debaki has adopted many practices that she has seen in the videos, such as, seed treatment, nursery raising and line transplantation in paddy. All these practices have helped her family to reduce expenses in paddy cultivation.

There are many such farm families in the village who have benefitted from the practices shown on the videos and they are grateful to Haima for her earnest effort in motivating them to adopt new practices. Haima is quite happy with her achievement and it is satisfying for her to see that her work has brought such happiness to many such farming families in her village.

This case study was originally compiled for Odisha Livelihood Mission’s Newsletter.

Manju Devi, a resident of Ababkarpur village in Mahua block of Vaishali. She works as an agricultural labourer and is the main source of income for her family of eight, that includes three grandchildren of ages 2 to 4 years. She is also a member of Pooja Jeevika Self Help Group.

A large portion of my income used to be spent on vegetables. Almost 50-60 INR was spent daily at the haat (rural /village market). Another concern was the expenditure on the health of the children, shared Manju Devi.

Things turned around for her, however, after watching a video on Sack farming in the month of December 2015. The dissemination by Sudhir Kumar, a village resource person (VRP) trained by Digital Green got Manju Devi thinking and she was excited by the prospect of replicating the same in her backyard.

With great enthusiasm, Manju Devi asked Sudhir to help her in replicating this practice in her backyard, but it was an unsuccessful attempt. However, she did not let this prove to be a dampener to her determination, she was sure that this will definitely help her in saving a good amount of money; she tried it again and was successful. Manju Devi is now the proud owner of six sacks in her backyard with cucumber, snake gourd, ridge gourd, bitter gourd, and seam.

Maju Devi is very happy with the ease of adopting sack farming. The method only required a small amount of space, she shared. The vegetable produced is more nutritious because no chemical fertilizers or spray is used. Growing corps inside a sack boost yield as she got 10 kgs of snake gourd in a day and 1 kg of Seam (bean) in an interval of 2-3 days. She even distributed the surplus to her neighbours. Sack farming involves filling bags with soil, manure, and pebbles for drainage, and growing plants on the top and in the holes on the sides. The sacks allowed her to grow different vegetables in places with limited access to land and water. Inspired by other videos on Ladyfinger, Tomatoes, and Chillies, she has also planted these below the creepers. Manju Devi is using only Brahmastra as an organic insect repellent, having learnt how to make it from another video.

It been over six months since she bought any vegetables from the haat (village market). Sack farming has saved me a great deal, as money that would have been used to buy vegetables can now be used to buy milk and attend to the medical needs of my grandchildren, shared Manju Devi. This has also helped her to avoid borrowing money in times of emergency from her neighbours, often at a very high interest rate.

Manju Devi believes that knowledge of new techniques through videos is a great method of educating the rural mass. Knowledge like this can transform the lives of the poor. Manju Devi is now motivating other small and marginal farmers to think differently and adopt practices she has seen in the videos.

About twenty women were packed into a small room in Dharahara village, Banmankhi block of Purnea district of Bihar, and concentrating on a video about the practice of Systematic Rice Intensification (SRI) for an improved yield of paddy being projected onto a white sheet pinned to the wall.

 

Despite the sweltering heat, what kept their attention from wavering was the occasional pausing of the video and a confident question thrown at them by 19-year-old Munni Kumari, the Village Resource Person (VRP) of Sagar Village Organisation (VO).

 

Determined to make a mark in her village and enhance her own knowledge base, Munni took up the additional responsibility as a VRP while pursuing her graduate studies along with a computer literacy course. I joined the VO in 2015. I got trained in video dissemination by Digital Green and JEEViKA in November 2015, shares Munni. She is already a pro, having conducted 85 disseminations in and around her village.

Initially, it was a little difficult since I was so young and it was difficult to convince the community members who were much older than me. I was not very confident about speaking in public, shared Munni.

 

Mithilesh Kumar, one of 17 Master Resource Persons (MRPs), trained by Digital Green to monitor the cadre of VRPs in his area, based in Banmakhi block, observed Munni during one of her initial disseminations. He gave her a score of only 10 out of 25 in the standard observation score sheet, which meant that Munni was unable to carry out the dissemination in the best manner possible.

 

The score sheet includes various skill sets and a detailed list of activities that make up an ideal dissemination. Munni scored poorly on various aspects, such as, not giving an introduction before starting the video; not asking about the interest for adopting the practices, not focusing on creating a conducive environment for the community to watch the video, lacking knowledge of the content in the video, not facing the community but instead facing the screen when the video was playing, not summarizing the video well and lacking confidence in public speaking.

 

Munni was very keen to learn how to overcome these challenges and to improve her performance. She was happy when Mithilesh observed her dissemination at regular intervals and suggested ways of improving her dissemination skills. He provided inputs like how to choose the place of dissemination, where to pause the video, how to stand and engage each and every member of the group, how to summarize the video at the end. He also suggested that she watch the video a few times before disseminating it so that she’s familiar with the content. He also encouraged her to give demo disseminations at the block level meetings to other VRPs who also provided her inputs.

 

Munni adopted all the feedback enthusiastically. She now disseminates the videos with greater ease and confidence. The quality of her disseminations has improved significantly and her community men and women twice her age are actually listening to her and engaging with her to learn more through the videos she screens.

Seeing the improvement in her work she was sent to other VOs for dissemination in neighboring villages in Banmankhi block. This is also a great example of how Digital Greens process is being institutionalized, whereby the MRPs are taking ownership of improving the quality of the cadre, which eventually benefits the community.

 

When my mother was giving birth to my seventh sibling at home, she lost a lot of blood and subsequently fell into a coma. It was terrifying to witness this. My mother eventually woke up and recovered very well, but the whole ordeal had been unforgettable for me. What the 25-year-old Adnch Tsga had witnessed in her childhood was one of the complications of the traditional Ethiopian birthing practices, in which families deliver babies at home instead of hospitals. It is safe to say that she is not a fan of this, even though she herself was delivered in the same manner. With the goal to promote better health practices, and to teach others to not make the mistakes as her family, in 2010, Adnch became a health-extension worker (HEW). Just two years later, she married a man named Mesfin Bekele, whom she has now been with for four years. Three years after her marriage, she got pregnant with her first child. Within a span of a few years, she had rapidly checked things off her bucket list, but there was still more to come.

 

Adnch returned to her birthplace in Dembecha, a woreda (or district) in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, to apply her knowledge and skills learned from her time in Bahir Dar Technical Vocational Institute. In her local kebele (community), she spent time going door-to-door teaching families about preventive medicine. Things they could do to avoid getting sick in the first place, for example, cooking healthy meals, giving birth in a hospital, or washing hands before and after using toilets. But despite having the home-field advantage, things were not so easy for her. It was difficult when I first started working with the local groups of farmers, she shares. They don’t think it is very important to hear from us, and so they’re not very receptive when we try to teach them something, she adds.

 

Since the houses are far apart, she would often be unable to visit all of the families that she had planned to visit for the day. In addition, going from door-to-door would exhaust her, and by the end of the day, she wouldn’t have any energy left for other things. With all the struggles and obstacles, it seemed inevitable that Adnch would back down, and pass off the baton to someone else. However, she continued to persevere. Thankfully, the light at the end of the tunnel was just within reach.

 

Digital Green (DG), in collaboration with Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA), with support from Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), Government of Ethiopia, was holding a video dissemination training in her woreda, and Adnch heard about this exciting opportunity. However, the training venue was nine kilometers away from her home. Nine kilometers may not seem much, but without a car and barely any public transportation, it’s quite the distance.

 

In the training itself, Adnch immediately realized the potential of Digital Greens model. The video-based approach makes it easy for both the extension workers and farmers to adopt the practices, she says. In the video, you can easily understand the procedure, because you see each step with your own eye, so it motivates you to apply those practices, she adds. Not only that, Adnch was impressed with how concise the videos were. Being able to convey lots of information in such short amounts of time, it was exactly what she needed to get the attention of the farmers in her kebele.

 

The Digital Green approach was clearly a hit with Adnch and other extension workers in the kebele. So much so that the kebele had even made a few videos of their own to show to their local groups of farmers. Adnch mentioned participating in a few of them herself. In one video, she is seen using quality protein maize (QPM) to cook injera, the staple Ethiopian dish. For the layperson, QPM is a form of hybrid corn with high levels of amino acids. It is a good alternative for families that often suffer from malnutrition and inadequate levels of protein consumption. She has also participated in other videos where she shows how to prepare a lentil soup, and how to prepare a nutritious bread using local resources. These recipes are important as they promote healthy eating. They’ve also began production on a hand washing video. For the future, Adnch notes that she would love to make a video on newborn child management, and things to do to ensure a child’s healthy growth. A video on toilet management is also one of her goals, as some families in her kebele seem to use toilets improperly, or not use toilets at all.

 

The Digital Green video-based model has also minimized my workload. Now, I feel like have more time left to accomplish other things, shares Adnch. Gone are the days of tirelessly walking from door-to-door to teach families about proper health practices. All she had to do now was plan a dissemination venue, and show the videos to the farmers using the projector and training provided by DG and SAA. In turn, she only required two things from the farmers and their families: their presence and their attention.

 

 

 

 

 

Most farmers appreciate the video-based approach because it doesn’t take too much of their time, shares Adnch. But there are still a few people that never show up, or don’t pay much attention, she adds. Adnch, though, comes prepared to every video dissemination with a plan. She knows exactly how to deal with the deviants. If farmers don’t show up, she holds another video dissemination for the absentees. If farmers don’t pay attention, she engages them by specifically targeting them for questions. At the end of the day, she wants to make sure that every farmer and their family are well prepared to start adopting the new recipes and new practices. The effects of this are starting to show, even in the kebeles relations with extension workers like Adnch. Earlier, they were quite resistant and adamant about sticking to their old ways, but now with the introduction of Digital Greens approach, they are growing more comfortable with the way extension workers are operating. Many families Adnch engages with think highly of her. Many families also think of her as their own daughter. Adnch attributes this to her newly found confidence. Ever since Digital Green was introduced to me, it feels like I have a companion right beside me guiding me, and supporting me. It has instilled confidence in me since I never feel like I am alone, she adds.

 

The health center in Adnchs kebele serves 37 developmental groups of which Digital Green has engaged 12. Each developmental group is made up of about 25 to 30 people. Adnch shares there are differences between the two. I have noticed that the engaged groups are more likely than the non-engaged groups to adopt the things we teach, she says. With the non-engaged group, they often miss a lot of information, or misremember the information, she adds. Moreover, in the engaged groups, she has noticed some changes in their lifestyles. Previously, these people didn’t know any of the recipes, but now they have started cooking some of the recipes we taught them through videos, she says. There is also one family that used to eat the same food every day of the week, but ever since we engaged them through videos, they’ve started diversifying their food choices, she adds.

 

Adnch is quite ecstatic to see her work finally come to fruition. When people adopt these new practices, it gives me a lot of energy, motivation, and hope for the future, she says. Now that I have been introduced to the video-based approach, I wish for all the farmers in my community, and not just a select few, to be engaged with the videos we produce and adopt the practices we teach, she adds. With the courage and work ethic of Adnch, it is only a matter of time before she accomplishes that as well.