The power of the video in communication

Videos play a greater role in fostering technology adoption and fostering information sharing among farmers. A well documented empirical paper supports this and one of the participants in the study attests the power of video: "Santosh is one of the few farmers from his village who has managed to cope with the weather this year, and attributes this to the videos on wheat cultivation that he watched. These short eight-to-ten minute documentaries, developed by Digital Green along with its partners in the local NGO ACCESS, as well as the village community, demonstrate best agricultural practices for farmers. The videos are made in the local language by the community, for the community, using members from the community as actors. Santosh has not only seen most of the videos developed in his district, but also featured in some of them. He has adopted several of the practices, and is a strong advocate of the video-based learning process amongst his peers. Explaining what he finds successful about the approach, Santosh says, “Not only do videos allow farmers to see a visual demonstration of the entire process, they also feature practices that can easily be tested. For example, I planted Variety 322 on a small part of my land last year. When I saw that it gave me a bigger yield than the other variety, I decided to plant more of it this year. I am lucky, because it is also stronger and better at surviving in this bad weather.” Furthermore, he adds, “Farmers are always keen to learn new and better ways of growing their crops. The videos are helpful because the entire process is visually demonstrated and explained in our own language by farmers from our own community. All this makes it easier for us to understand.”" FAO