- Barza Wire - https://wire.farmradio.fm -

Greetings!

We have a number of new subscribers we would like to welcome this week: Veronica Kanyongo from Seke rural home based care, community hospice, in Zimbabwe; Lukangyu Onesiphore Ir. Bitomwa  from WWF, Simon Mussana Mussumbu from Actions pour le Développement Multisectoriel ADM and Jean Nlandu Di Nzita, all three from the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Jean Martial Bahi from a farmer’s organisation in Côte d’Ivoire; Judith de Wolf from CIAT-TSBF in Zimbabwe; Victor Kimathi from Eden Free Market and Margaret McEwan from CGIAR, both in Kenya; Nicholas Mwale from the National Agricultural Information Services in Zambia; David Koffa from the Ministry of Agriculture in Liberia; Danny Gotto from Women of Uganda Network in Uganda and finally, Rita Ogar from Bufa Farms and Emilia Eyo from Girls’ Power Initiative (GPI), both in Nigeria.

Our first story is from southern Africa and arises from the recent FANRPAN (Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network) meeting in Namibia. The themes of the meeting included livestock, food security and the changing climate. Reflecting these themes, the story presents two farmers in different situations, who share how they have adapted their practices. Continuing the theme of climate change and adapting to drier conditions, our second story focuses on conventionally-bred drought-tolerant maize. Farmers in Malawi have been happy with its performance so far. Seed distributors are even beginning to rethink how they can best supply farmers with the seed they need.

Farm Radio Weekly discovered an interesting interview that we wanted to share with our subscribers. Louis Amede is the general coordinator of the Journalists of Central and West Africa for Agriculture. In the interview, he talks about the role of the media in promoting agriculture. He says, Nowadays, farmers are not only information users, they become progressively also producers of information. Farmers need to share their experiences in order to help things go well and progress. Journalists need to seek out these experiences.” You can read the full interview, published in the New Agriculturist, at http://www.new-ag.info/view/point.php?a=1699 [1]. The interview is particularly timely in a week during which the UN Food and Agriculture Organization announced that the official number of hungry people in the world has dropped from just over one billion to 925 million. In light of this, we are interested to hear your comments and experiences on how journalists in your region are promoting agriculture!

Our third story is about macadamia nuts. Farmers in Kenya fear losing their trees to a disease-causing fungus. But a scientist has been studying the problem and is hopeful of finding an answer soon. In our Action section this week, we hear from John Cheburet. Along with two other Farm Radio Weekly writers, he attended an IDRC (International Development Research Centre) conference in Nairobi last week. The theme of the event was women’s access to land. The writers are now busy preparing stories for publication in Farm Radio Weekly. Look out for their stories in late October. Finally, our resource piece brings news of an interesting opportunity for young journalists.

Happy reading!

-The Farm Radio Weekly team