As Farm Radio International continues to celebrate its 30th anniversary, we invite you to take a trip way back to 1979 when Farm Radio International (then called Developing Countries Farm Radio Network) began. Based on the idea that smallholder farmers throughout Africa could benefit greatly by receiving timely and accurate farming information over the radio, George Atkins (founder and former director of DCFRN) set out to provide an invaluable service to broadcasters across the continent and beyond.
Farm Radio International now provides farming information and training resources for African radio broadcasters via hard copy scripts, online through Farm Radio Weekly, and through online learning courses and competitions. But it wasn’t always this way…
When the organization first began, George Atkins himself would sit down in a studio and read radio scripts aloud (many of them written by him), recording the “broadcast” on a cassette tape. For years, DCFRN archived this information and sent it out across the world as a reference material for rural radio broadcasters. While this is no longer common practice at Farm Radio International, it is great to look back at the history of how our small organization began, and get a glimpse of the extraordinary vision that George had, even in those early days.
For our 30th anniversary, we decided to dig into the archives and digitize some of these old recordings. Please listen [1] to a clip from the very first script package recorded by George Atkins in 1979 for DCFRN, which was then supported by the Canadian International Development Agency, Massey Ferguson, and Guelph University.