Malawians are gaining access to agric video material through DJs

Even without smartphones, internet or electricity, rural Malawians are gaining access to video material through young entrepreneurs called DJs who work mainly from barber shops.

In small towns in Malawi, young men who want to start their own ICT business are teaming up with
the unlikeliest of partners, including barbers. The entrepreneurs are almost always men in their 20s or even teens. Most have some schooling and can read and write. They call themselves DJs, copying video materials for a small fee in a shop called a “burning centre”.

Few of the DJs have access to internet or email, although they do have Facebook on their cell phones. The DJs like movies and some are making their own movies or music videos. They share the videos they make with their friends, so even though they are off the internet, they have a real-life social network to swap original and copied content. Some DJs can provide other ICT services, as farmers begin to demand them, for example they sell blank CDs, and helping to film

or edit videos of local events.

The burning centres pay no royalties, so Malawian entertainers have the cold comfort of becoming famous without getting rich. But for the non-profit development sector, the DJs can be ideal partners, to get educational videos into farmers’ hands. In 2015, the international NGO Access Agriculture distributed educational videos for farmers in 3GP and on DVD to 70 DJs. The DJs sold 456 DVDs and 645 videos in 3GP on the parasitic weed Striga, 551 DVDs and 547 3GP videos on rice, and 507 DVDs and 559 3GP videos on chilli growing and processing. By tapping into entrepreneurial DJs, educational videos can be distributed to thousands of rural people.

Related links

• Website with farmer-to-farmer videos available for free download.
• Website with blogs, books, articles and other resources on agriculture and communication.

Related:
Thirty four farmer to farmer videos are presently available in Chichewa language. These videos are freely downloadable, also in 3gp format for mobile phone viewing, from All videos in Chichewa. 

Below are some highlights on few of these videos.

Drying and storing chillies

Practical ideas about proper harvesting, drying, grading and storage of chillies.

The rice seedbed

How to make sure the seedbed will give your rice crop the best start.

  

Helping women recover after childbirth

Various ways to help women recover after childbirth, both emotionally and physically.

Managing vegetable nematodes

The diagnosis, life cycle and control methods of root knot nematodes in vegetables.

Let’s talk money

A participatory tool to measure cost-benefits of agricultural technologies helps farmers to make decisions.

Composting to beat striga

Compost helps to fight the parasitic weed striga that attacks maize, millet, sorghum and rice in Africa and Asia.