Video-sharing website on agricultural training videos in local languages

18 December 2015. News release of Access Agriculture. A new version of Agtube has been created to make it easier to upload videos and to further share videos already posted to other sites such as vimeo and youtube. If you have any videos or anything that you have recorded yourself you can share it with others on Agtube – social media for rural people.

Access Agriculture is an international NGO which showcases agricultural training videos in local languages. It provides a world-leading, open access web platform where all these videos can be freely downloaded.

• At the end of 2015, videos are available in 65 different languages. 
• Translations have been commissioned by many different organisations, and in 2015 Access Agriculture recruited a Global Translation Coordinator to respond to the increased demand for video translations. 
• New videos. Many quality “farmer-to-farmer” training videos were added to the Access Agriculture website on a wide range of topics, from crop management to livestock, from soil conservation to water harvesting. 
• Many of the videos were developed by partner organisations that have been trained across Africa. Others were produced by some AA international partners, such as WOCAT, a global network of soil and water conservation specialists, and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).
• Partnership. The partnership base is steadily expanding; over 60 organisations in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America have now signed partnership agreements with Access Agriculture. In Kenya, AA signed a unique agreement with the Equity Group Foundation, representing one of East Africa’s main banks.
• University linkages. AA has supported nearly 30 MSc and PhD students in six African countries to conduct research on video-mediated rural learning, including cost-recovery for video shows, private sector distribution of DVDs, language and translation, and other topics. In the near future, their work will be featured on the Access Agriculture website.
• TV and radio stations. Many TV and radio stations have signed contracts with AA to use the quality videos and audio files on the Access Agriculture website for broadcasting.
• Agtube. A new version of Agtube has been created to make it easier to upload videos and to further share videos already posted to other sites such as vimeo and youtube. If you have any videos or anything that you have recorded yourself you can share it with others on Agtube – social media for rural people. Agi does Agtube
• Training. In 2015 AA conducted training workshops in Kenya and Uganda to build local capacities in video translations, with additional workshops being planned in early 2016 in several countries in Africa and Asia. 
• In November, AA organised a two-day writeshop with students and organisations (partners and others) using videos for farmers resulted in a story book called “A Passion for Video”. 
• This was followed by a conference in Nairobi, attended by some 100 participants. 
• Access Agriculture Video Awards. A highlight of the Access Agriculture week was the first Access Agriculture Video Awards. Six awards were given to video production partner – Centre Songhai from Benin, to media partner – Infonet Biovision from Kenya, outreach awards to AAS/CIMMYT in Bangladesh and Countrywise Ghana, an innovation award to Bon Paysan from Benin and an outstanding achievement award to Jane Nalunga from the National Organic Agricultural Movement Of Uganda.