Insights from a research paper By Gerald Businge and Risdel Kasasira presented at CTA Media Conference in Brussels, Belgium in October 2009 on The role of the media in agricultural and rural development of Africa Caribbean and Pacific countries.
Introduction: Media Coverage of Agriculture and Rural Development Issues
This paper is informed by findings of a study carried out by Ultimate Media Consult on the coverage of agriculture issues in Uganda’s two leading newspapers, both of whom have provided dedicated space to agriculture issues.
The New Vision www.newvision.co.ug , which has been having two farming pages every Wednesday for the past more than 10 years was convinced about the need to have more agriculture covered. Between four and six mostly news stories are reported weekly by the government owned newspaper. It took the intervention of International Women Media Forum to get the Aga Khan owned Daily Monitor www.monitor.co.ug to dedicate weekly space to agricultural reporting. Daily Monitor has published these stories every Wednesday since getting this funding.
While many stories have been covered under the dedicated weekly reporting by the two newspapers, agriculture still remains poorly covered compared to business, politics, crime, entertainment and health.
Objectives of the study on media coverage of agriculture
v To find out the nature, quantity and quality of reporting of agriculture in Uganda
v Identify challenges and solutions towards better coverage of agriculture issues
v To establish if and how farmers are benefiting from the media coverage of agriculture.
v To propose measures that can be used to inform greater coverage and communication of agriculture and rural development issues.
Media in Uganda
The media in Uganda has undergone rapid growth in the last twenty years. With the liberalization of the communication sector in the 1990s, Uganda has got over 200 FM radio stations, 20 Television channels and 10 newspapers and magazines. New Media or Online journalism is still green in the country because of limited internet capabilities (broadband is being connected).
The newspapers that include New Vision, Daily Monitor, Red Pepper and The Observer are the most influential part of print media in Uganda.
These major newspapers of Uganda are published in English. Apart from the major Ugandan newspapers there are a number of regional newspapers in Uganda which are published in various regional languages of Uganda. Thus it is seen that Uganda newspapers provide a wide range of news.
Findings on Media output Vis agriculture
*Dedicated coverage has resulted in more coverage of agriculture issues.
*But dedicated coverage has seen agriculture issues delegated to “their sections” and not in major news e.g. front page
*Of the three surveyed newspapers, there was no reporter specializing in agricultural reporting.
*Despite having all these media outlets, agriculture and rural development issues are still poorly covered compared to other beats like politics, entertainment, business, health and sports.
This can be explained by the covering pattern of agriculture compared to other beats.
Example
In the last eight months, New Vision ran has run three, Red Pepper has zero and Weekly Observer has not run any on their front page news. Almost all the articles on Daily Monitor front page are political (530), business (8), sports (4), health (14), entertainment (3) agriculture (0), environment (4)
| News type/beat | Number of stories |
| Politics | 530 |
| Business | 8 |
| Sports | 4 |
| Entertainment | 3 |
| Agriculture | 0 |
| Environment | 4 |
Table showing front page story distribution by beat in Daily Monitor from January 2009 to August 2009
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Motivation for Journalists and media houses to undertake more Agriculture coverage
Since 1992 when the Daily Monitor newspaper started to 2009, there was no dedicated space for agriculture like the newspaper was doing for politics, health, business and entertainment.
However, with the support of International Women’s Media Forum (IWMF), Daily Monitor has been publishing 20-30 articles every month since April 2009 through an agriculture weekly pullout every Wednesday.
According to the Editors at Daily Monitor, the paper was publishing 0-3 articles every month before the partnership (with funding), for the 2007- April 2009 period reviewed.
Agriculture coverage by The New Vision
The New Vision has been publishing 12-20 articles on agriculture every month through its weekly two farming pages. The newspaper says it values the agriculture sector and its role in the country’s development. Recently, the newspaper started running one weekly profile of a farmer who earn big in agriculture (Harvesting Money).
It should be noted that Daily Monitor which started its initiative four months ago is producing more (up to 40) agriculture stories every month than New Vision (up to 24) though it has been at it for the past 10 years. This is because Daily Monitor is a well funded (foreign) initiative.
Benefits of improved reporting of agriculture
v Farmers write back to the editor and columnists seeking help or advice.
v At least 3 readers write to the features editor of Daily Monitor commenting on agricultural stories.(thanking her or complaining)
Limitations of increased coverage of agriculture issues
v Lack of interested journalists to report agricultural and rural issues. Young writers shun agricultural reporting because of mentality that agriculture does not sell.
v Those trying to write on Agriculture and Rural Development are above 40 years, yet 90% of journalists in Uganda are below 35 years.
v Grass root farmers do not access information from improved coverage because they can’t read English.
v The beneficiaries are urban farmers doing agriculture as side-income. Full-time farmers who are based in villages do barely access information resulting from increased reporting on agriculture in newspapers (print media).
v Most farmers can’t afford the price of the newspaper to be able to read the “good” agriculture stories.
v Journalists find it difficult to get hold of sources of agricultural stories including farmers, extension workers, scientists and government workers.
Lessons from the two newspapers on media coverage of agriculture and rural development
- Agriculture reporting can be a self generated effort by media houses (after appreciating agriculture’s relevance to the majority).
- Better reporting of agriculture can provide the important information and guidance farmers need to boost their agriculture and farming.
- Financial support to media houses greatly improves coverage of agriculture and rural development issues. If many media houses are provided with funding to do agricultures stories (unlike politics, entertainment, agriculture stories are mostly field based), they can commit more space and airtime to these issues.
- Many journalists not interested in covering agriculture issues, even if the media houses want to run such stories.
- Many journalists covering agricultural and rural development issues are old, and some are taken by better paying organizations outside journalism.
- The low pay by most media houses makes agriculture reporting unattractive since it takes more effort than say doing a political or entertainment story.
- Increasing Agriculture reporting per se does not improve communication of agriculture issues to farmers. Newspaper reach a few people (an estimated 100,000 in Uganda daily), most are in English. Another study by Ultimate Media has shown that improved agriculture reporting and related programmes on radio are best to reach most farmers, but they should be aired at specific farmer friendly times (farmers especially women are busy most of the time) and should involve interactions with farmers. The study also found most agriculture information (especially tips, new information on prices, policies etc) can best be communicated through mobile phones to farmers or farmer group leaders.
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Recommendations for improving Media coverage and Communication of Agriculture and Rural Development issues
v Provide financial and logistical support to media houses to employ or pay journalists specifically dedicated to reporting on agriculture and rural development issues. Providing such journalists with computers, cameras, recorders etc will save reporters from competing for scarce resources in media houses, and help them to produce Multimedia stories in ARD (as most media go online) in order to enable the news and information produced to be searchable.
v Establish agriculture reporting awards in different countries to interest journalists to cover agriculture.
v Organise workshops and modules to educate journalists, editors and owners of media houses on the importance of agriculture to their audiences and why it is important to have more agriculture reporting. This could include making journalists and media owners understand issues in agriculture like women and gender, climate change, commercial farming, organic Vs conventional etc
v Buying of agriculture stories from journalists and distributing these stories to media houses for free would go a long in encouraging journalists to report agriculture and rural development issues and diverse media to run such stories.
v Encourage the media to give more space to agricultural and rural development issues though lobbying, reading and commenting on their work, etc
v Translating agriculture English media reports into vernacular for grassroots farmers who can’t listen or read English is also important.
v Improving communication of agriculture issues means farmers being able to access and understand the information covered in the media. It is therefore important to help buy newspapers or photocopy/ record and provide articles on agriculture to farmers groups, including relevant translations.
v Buying time and space in media to run supplements or to broadcast agriculture stories and issues where popular media houses are unwilling to offer the space is a strategy to consider.
v Training farmers, scientists and government workers on how to target, document and easily avail information on agriculture to journalists, as well maintain good relations with reporters and program sections is also important.
v Videos on unchanging agricultural practices and issues can be produced and translated for farmers to learn the most pressing issues relating to better farming methods, markets, examples of planting or breeding types and practices etc. i.e. provide practical information to farmers in a visual format they can access many times to better understand the message in the content.
v Develop mobile applications that can help farmers access news and information on agriculture and rural development on their mobile phones, since they are the mainstream media for most Ugandans.
Conclusions
v The Media can play an important role in Agriculture development through providing relevant information at different times on diverse issues to a wide audience, if well targeted and utilized by all stakeholders. It is important to look at media as different from journalism, and know that the wider media operates on commercial or other interests.
v Also, improved coverage of agricultural issues will be most helped if expanded on by other efforts that make such news and information available to farmers and other stakeholders at the right time, in the right language and context.
v If Journalists, ARD practitioners and communication specialists work together to document, analyse and disseminate information and knowledge on ARD on a dedicated basis, the role of the media in ARD will become more visible and viable.
Risdel Kasasira is Special projects writer and Reporter at Daily Monitor as well as a Researcher with Ultimate Media Consult Tel. +256782308901 rkasasira(at)monitor.co.ug kasasira(at)ultimatemediaconsult.com
Gerald Businge is a Multimedia Journalist Journalist/communication specialist, Manager and researcher at Ultimate Media Consult (U) Ltd Tel. +25772627676/ +256751627676/ +256414593555; P. O Box 36665, Kampala, Uganda
businge(at)ultimatemediaconsult.com www.geraldbusinge.com www.weinformers.net