Justine Edonu and his wife in their millet farm in Morungatuny Sub-county, Amuria District. They are some of the people who have utilised the e-extension platform of Uliza. PHOTO | TONY MUSHOBOROZI
In today’s era where all manner of information is easily accessible through the internet, we go online every day to find answers to whatever challenge we may encounter, mundane or existential. We use the internet to find meanings of words, what may be causing the whistling noise in the car as it starts, how to write an annual report or homemade remedies for heartburn.
This, however, is not the case for everyone. When you are a rural subsistence farmer, for instance, with no computer, no smart phone or internet connection, what do you turn to for quick clarifications? The options are almost non-existent. A farmer may have to wait for the weekly farming programme on radio, just so he can call in with their question, pray that they will be fortunate enough to be among the few whose calls will be picked during the programme and hope that the expert will answer his or her question satisfactorily. It is a gamble to say the least. If only radio was more interactive.
One Kampala-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), Farm Radio International (FRI) figured out a way of making radio more interactive to help farmers get timely solutions to their challenges faster.
In 2019, FRI created Uliza, an innovative solution for interactivity and quality assurance. Uliza merges radio, cell phone and internet technology to deliver quick solutions to farmers in distress. Uliza means “ask” in Swahili. The platform was created to provide cost-effective and consistent extension and advisory services to all farmers.
“We created Uliza to make radio more interactive and make extension services more accessible. Because radio has traditionally been one-way communication, we knew that many listeners would love to take part in the radio conversation but only a handful of callers can get through during a radio programme, leaving the rest unattended to. “We created this platform so that it costs nothing for a farmer to call in during the programme, without worrying that they won’t be picked. Farmers ask questions about the topic on the programme and those questions are answered,” Stephen Justin Ecaat the FRI Uganda country programmes manager director, says.
In a country where 70 percent of households are involved in agriculture, and extension services remain as low as one extension officer serving 1,800 farmers, this made sense. Only five percent of households are able to receive advice from an extension worker, according to FRI. This makes it difficult for farmers in Uganda to get access to reliable, up-to-date information. That is where Uliza comes in.
A quick glance at the technology
Uliza is a dashboard platform that merges three important communication technologies into one: the radio, the telephone and the internet. The radio broadcasts agricultural information to the farmers, an unlimited number of farmers call the radio with questions and input about any subject of interest, and all those voices are captures and stored on the internet for timely handling and broadcast.
“Uliza creates dialogue and knowledge-sharing communication hubs aimed at providing farmers with the latest regenerative agriculture practices. It also extends marketing and business advice while allowing farmers to share their own experiences and ideas,” Ecaat says.
“We work with the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, District local governments through the Production and Marketing offices as well as a variety of private and public stakeholders, to establish the building blocks for a network of digital extension services. “The E-Extension Uliza platforms are hosted on 12 local FM stations that are located in the 12 sub-regions of Uganda namely Buganda, Busoga, Bugisu, Teso, Karamoja, Lango, Acholi, West Nile, Bunyoro, Tooro, Ankole and Kigezi.”
How it works
Uliza was first developed as a tool for audience polling. It has since evolved into a suite of services that combine radio, mobile phones and, often, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems to enable listeners to communicate and exchange information with their radio station quickly, easily and free of charge. Farm Radio trains radio station partners to use Uliza to engage hundreds, often thousands of radio listeners using their mobile phones during, before and after farming programmes air.
A farmer encounters a challenge, he calls a toll-free number and asks a question. The challenge may be worsening soil fertility or an urgent need to find an improved breed of pigs or fast-growing eucalyptus saplings.
All the questions are saved on an online dashboard and later played on the local FM radio where an extension worker does his or her best to provide solutions. But most importantly, farmers who have solved similar challenges in the past call the same toll-free number to give real life experiences and advice to those struggling farmers. This way, extension services are democratised and the best ideas are given the light of day.
Features of the platform
Uliza Poll (interaction through voting) , Uliza Alert (push content), Uliza Info (pull content), Uliza Answers (questions asked and answered), Uliza Log for storage, monitoring, evaluation and delivery of content.
Extension worker speaks
Jethro Otul is an extension worker in Morungatuny Sub-county in Amuria District. He has been using the Uliza platform since its launch in 2019. He says one of the biggest strengths of the technology is that it has given farmers more access to solid information because when they call with a question, they get 10 answers instead of one, giving the person who asked the question more solid ground to stand on.
“In the past, many people would queue to call the radio station and only a handful would get to talk. They would ask a question and whatever the expert said was what they went with. With Uliza, it is not just the expert that gets to speak. Other farmers that have overcome your current problem also call in and give their experiences, giving you more confidence in the answer. It has made extension services brand new. It has also helped us reach more people,” Otul says.
“Many times the expert may not have a satisfactory answer. For instance I have witnessed several instances where a caller asks for a particular breed of goats or trees and me the expert may not have a good answer. Then a farmer calls on the platform and shares exactly what the caller needed,” he adds.
The reach
According to FRI, the initial aim of the E-Extension Platforms project funded by IKEA Foundation was to enable more than 15 million rural people in Uganda to access the radio programmes between 2022 and 2023 but ended up reaching 30 million.
They intended that at least 525,000 listeners would use the service regularly (40 percent being women and youth), but they ended up reaching two million listeners.
They intended to provide 20 percent of rural people across Uganda access to the programmes; they have reached 33 percent. A second phase is underway, where together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), they plan on to exploiting the potential of sustainable dialogue and knowledge sharing platforms and other digital advisory services for harmonised pluralistic services.
FRI is a Canadian non-profit organisation at the forefront of ICT-enabled extension and communication for scale. FRI’s interactive rural radio approach addresses the information, communication and extension needs of millions of small-scale farmers, rural entrepreneurs and citizens.
Uliza is just one of the many technologies that the organisation has come up with. It is a platform for extension services for the new age. FRI works in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi (with Farm Radio Trust), Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.
