SAIRLA Story of Change: How closing information gaps in the soybean value chain has informed investment and policy decisions with farmers, the private sector and government

Productivity of soybean in Ghana is low. This is partly due to information gaps in the value chain that limit farmers’ access to inputs, and limit input suppliers’ ability to respond appropriately to demand.

The GALA project’s awareness campaigns in Northern Ghana and the information generated through the GALA project on the demand and supply gap experienced by farmers has informed investment and policy decisions by farmers, agro dealers, input producers and the Ghana government that contribute to improving the productivity of soybean in Ghana.

Soybean is a priority crop for Ghana – it has been included as a focus crop in the Ghana national strategy “Planting for Food and Jobs”. Soybean has been grown in the north of Ghana for around 100 years, however productivity is still low. The reasons behind this are linked with the use of poor practices by farmers, combined with low soil fertility and a reluctance to use inputs such as certified seeds, rhizobium inoculant and phosphorus fertiliser. Farmers’ limited use of inputs is partly due to the lack of effective access to those inputs through agro-dealerships: farmers are not able to find the inputs they need and agro-dealers are not stocking inputs because of lack of information about demand.

In 2017, within the framework of the SAIRLA funded Gender and the Legume Alliance (GALA) project and the Africa Soil Health Consortium (ASHC) project, CABI developed communication campaigns in Northern Ghana using village-based film screenings. The purpose of these videos was to increase farmers’ awareness and knowledge of key agricultural practices for soybean and to share information about farmers’ preferences and practices to improve information available to participants in the soybean value chain.

1. The challenge

Agro-dealers lacked information about interest from farmers for inputs such as improved varieties, fertiliser and inoculants. Similarly, some farmers involved in soybean production had low productivity levels but were not fully aware of best agricultural practices and current technologies, especially inoculants.

This information gap particularly affected women farmers. The work at the inception and the baseline stage of the GALA programme had suggested a lack of equitable gender access to information by women and young farmers. This, combined with other constraints, negatively impacts on the crop produced. Women farmers in the north of Ghana can and do participate in the soybean value chain, but efforts to ensure their continued inclusion through, for example, access to high-quality seed, other inputs, and agricultural information and trainings, could have benefits.

In addition, information campaigns were not reaching minority language users. The multiple languages spoken in the northern regions of Ghana represent a significant challenge for information campaigns. In order to achieve large-scale impact, there is a tendency to use channels and formats that reach large numbers of people. This strategy can result in some of the linguistic minorities being over-looked in favour of languages that can deliver scale. Minority language speakers may already

feel under-represented and under-invested in, and poor policy on communication campaigns can exacerbate this situation.

At the same time, inoculant was increasingly available locally in the north, where the GALA project was sited. CABI’s private sector informal partner, Green-Ef had stocks of inoculant in place in 2017 and Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) was working with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to set up an inoculant plant in Northern Ghana to produce SARIFIX (which went into commercial production for the 2018 planting season). Furthermore, soybean processing capability was also being developed in the region. The Ghana Government’s ‘One District One Factory’ national initiative to create jobs opportunities planned the development of a soybean processing factory in the Northern Ghana region before the beginning of the cropping season in 2018.

2. The intervention

GALA’s campaign sought to achieve two objectives:

• To communicate messages about improved legume technologies at scale in Ghana’s northern regions and to encourage the uptake of inputs notably inoculant, improved seed and ‘P’ fertiliser

• To explore the impact of the channels and formats used in the campaigns on different gender groups especially women and young farmers (defined as under 35 years old).

The challenge of having multiple languages (GALA delivered its campaigns in nine different languages in 2018) made radio unsuitable. However, the team was aware of the presence in the country of the award winning Countrywise Communications and therefore, of the village-based film screenings option in Ghana’s northern regions.

The village-based film screening approach was designed to overcome the challenges of dealing with a plethora of small local radio programmes delivering to the different linguistic groups in the region. CABI’s experience of working with local radio is that it very hard to maintain adequate oversight of the nuanced messages when multiple languages are being used. Radio is a live format and invited guests can often be unpredictable contributors. When the team can’t follow all the languages used, it is very hard to stop misinformation or off message communications slipping into the mix. The video-screenings offer a high degree of consistency and the screening officers who have some agricultural experience and training in the messages being communicated oversee the Q&A following the videos.

The format of the village-based film screenings approach has been developed and refined over a number of years. Traditional authority leaders in the villages (chiefs) are visited and the film-screening team is invited to the village on a given date. There is a discussion about local customs such as meal times and religious observances. This dictates the screening time for each village. Around an hour before the screenings the equipment is set up and music videos and short comedy films are screened. Children arrive and watch them. Over the next 45 minutes or so the crowd gathers. The screening officers have a ‘litmus’ test for the farmers’ interest in the films. One of them explained – if the children are quiet the film is good. If the children think it is boring, they become noisy – if the parents think it is boring, they let them make noise.

GALA’s film, How to grow soybeans, was screened to audiences ranging from 25 to 700 people. In 2017 the video screenings lasted 45 minutes and were followed by a Q&A session of up to 75 minutes. In 2018, in addition to the video screenings, music videos were commissioned by GALA to a technical brief to relay a message in the context of local culture, practices and languages. An additional information film on fall armyworm developed by CABI and, in two locations, news bulletins based on farmers’ questions gathered at the local markets were integrated in the 2018 video screenings.

During each video screening enumerators collected information from the people attending including their name, phone number and availability to be involved in follow ups.

Tables 1 and 2 below summarise the number of people that attended video screening in the various regions.

Table 1. Number of farmers attending video screenings in 2018.

Men Women Youth Total

Northern region 6,434 7,606 6,076 20,116

Upper West 4,960 4,747 6,263 1,5970

Upper East 1,836 2,042 1,299 5177

Total 13,230 14,395 13,638 41,263

Table 2. Number of farmers attending video screenings in 2017.

Men Women Youth Total

Northern region total 6,828 9,223 13,504 29,555

The total number of people watching the music videos in 2018 exceeded 40,000: The Choggu boys video featured 26,604 views, and El-Twist featured about 20,279 views. GALA estimates that in total the various videos reached 127,737 farmers through screenings. More women than men (and youth) attended the screenings.

Key stakeholders involved in the story of change were:

• CSIR-Savanna Agriculture Research Institute, the IITA and Wageningen University N2Africa project that provided the technical backstopping for content of the communication campaigns

• Green-Ef, the agricultural wholesalers that provided GALA with information about the location of stocking inputs.

• The Soybean Innovation Lab that helped GALA to explore further uses for its findings

Within these partnerships, GALA supported Green-Ef to establish a toll-free helpline for farmers and develop the capability to send out SMS messages to customers. The project also introduced Green-Ef to the Esoko team in Ghana (a mobile phone / web based agricultural profiling and messaging service) which has resulted in the Esoko help-line referring farmers in the north of Ghana to the Green-Ef-supplied agro-dealerships. The communications team from GALA also rewrote the scripts for Green-Ef’s radio spots, making them significantly easier to understand.

3. The change (result)

Changes in farmer behaviour and investment Farmers reported a greater awareness of soybean practices as a result of participating in the video screenings. Key behavioural changes include: planting in line, weeding farms regularly, applying correct spacing and applying chemicals to seeds during storage. General feedback was that they felt better able to take good decisions on their farm. The videos also raised awareness on inoculants, which few farmers were aware of, and appropriate fertiliser use (necessary soil conditions to apply

fertiliser, quantity to apply, etc.). The increase in interest from farmers on practices promoted is backed up by the numerous queries recorded at the local shops. The analysis of the dataset, together with information collected from 3,009 farmers (some of which were also interviewed at the baseline stage) through computer aided telephone interview (CATI) using iLogix’s Input and Output Supply Information System (IOSIS) research product, showed an increase in adoption rate (between 4 to 16%) for crop rotation and chemical weeding. A change in adoption rate (an average of 5%) was also registered for use of chemical fertiliser, manure and Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags. Changes in private sector investment Information obtained from farmers from the GALA CATI survey and support from the GALA and N2Africa projects contributed to; (i) the development of a new fertiliser for soybean (ii) investment by private sector input supply companies in messaging and communication services for customers Collaboration between N2Africa and YARA Ghana started in 2015 and encouraged YARA to bring Triple Super Phosphate (TSP) into northern Ghana after initial trials. Before this collaboration, YARA was using TSP to blend fertiliser for other crops including maize and cocoa. In 2016, N2Africa and YARA set-up multi-locational trials evaluating different fertiliser blends which resulted in the development of New Yara Legume (NYL). In addition, GALA surveys revealed that farmers were applying little, if any, fertiliser on soybean and phosphorus fertiliser was hardly used at all. N2Africa demonstration plots and agronomic trials with farmers on soybean led to a growth in demand –quantified by GALA survey data – as farmers saw positive results in the pilots. This measurable market information gave YARA the confidence to invest in a specific legume fertiliser – NYL. In addition, as result of the project’s communication campaigns, Green-Ef, one of the major input providers in Northern Ghana, felt more confident to co-invest (with GALA) in a helpline for farmers and in an SMS message service to inform customers about the availability of inoculants at its dealer-ships. Green-Ef also invested in radio advertisements that were produced with the support of the GALA team. Changes in government policy and investment GALA’s close engagement with the N2Africa project and its deep links with the government of Ghana, helped to translate project findings into policy insights and recommendations. The GALA project contributed to the Ghana Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s (MoFA) recognition of the importance of soybean in the livestock feed and food sectors. As a result, MoFA made soybean one of its priority crops, recently including soybean in the Planting Food for Jobs (PFJ) scheme and setting a target of doubling (the 2017) soybean production by 2022. MoFA has also recognised inoculants and P-blended fertiliser for soybean to be effective and part of the key pool of inputs it subsidises under the PFJ scheme. The inclusion of NYL in this pool of inputs followed the presentation of scientific trial findings to MoFA. It was the combination of agronomic research and farmer demand surveys that informed and encouraged YARA’s investment and MoFA’s subsequent acceptance of NYL as suitable for addition to the PFJ scheme and for the Ghana market in general. Locally produced soybean seed varieties have been more recently promoted by the government, contributing to shift the past trend of importing soybean seed varieties from Brazil for the PFJ scheme: the current promoted varieties are ‘improved varieties’, yet bred for local conditions and part of the GALA campaigns.

Following a presentation in 2017 to the Government of Ghana’s Fall Army Worm (FAW) Taskforce and facilitated by the Ghana NLA, CABI GALA and its partner, Countrywise, has worked with the task force

to use the project’s campaign approach to disseminate information on the management of FAW. FAW information films were screened at the GALA village screenings in the north of Ghana in 2018 in ten languages. In addition, in May 2019, the NLA facilitated a workshop in the Central Region on the campaign approach to encourage take up at district level. Village-based screenings are now seen as part of the Government’s tool kit to manage FAW.

4. SAIRLA’s contribution to the change

The GALA project’s contribution to the changes reported was through the carefully crafted and inclusive communication campaigns, the targeted use of farmer information collected through the CATI survey and the networks and partnerships that it built with private sector and other programmes.

5. Conclusions

Success factors The campaign methodology developed proved to be an effective and inclusive way to deliver information at scale to isolated rural communities – the success rested on the format of the events, the translation practice used and the development of music videos in 2018.

• The reach of the information to include whole households, including women and children, has established a different route to tackle the asymmetrical access to information between men and women and younger and older farmers. Further research is needed to understand how this impacted on the subsequent decision-making processes within households.

• GALA gave much time and attention to overcoming the challenge of multiple languages in Northern Ghana. Whilst the GALA communications team was able to nuance the language of the English version of the GALA information to create farmer-friendly jargon-free terminology, ensuring the same level of language usage in other local languages, together with a meaningful translation of words relating to new and innovative technologies, was more challenging. The communications team relied on its in-country partner, Countrywise, to bring in communications specialists with a basic understanding of agriculture and knowledge of the local languages. GALA’s approach in these regions was for all spoken word to be presented in the Ghanaian languages and for all print to use English. This is based on the knowledge that literate people speak and read English. English is also the language that secondary school science is taught in. Using English also ensured that the message remained consistent.

• The music videos commissioned by GALA represent messages in languages Dagbani and Dagaare and were filmed on location in these areas. The commissioning process was not to create a song and commission translations – but rather to work with the artists to create an original song based on the technical brief. The result is so idiomatic that they are very hard to translate into English. The music, although apparently contemporary and reflecting the popular culture of high life and hip life, is also based on traditional folk music rhythms that give them wide appeal. Finally, the videography has been storyboarded in consultation with the farming communities in each area to reflect the cultural practices.

• Countrywise negotiated, on a settlement by settlement basis, that the traditional authorities selected a suitable start time for the film. This was based on local customs – such as meal times and religious observances. This official backing for the events may have helped legitimise the screenings and make it easier for women to attend.

• The screening officers, who drive the bikes and set up the equipment and facilitate the discussions, stayed in the village after the screening. This ensured that the timing of the

screening is not based on the need of the driver to reach their accommodation, but rather on the needs of the audience.

What could have gone better Stocks of inoculant in the mainstream agro-dealers were not always accessible to meet the increased demand from farmers.

• The wholesalers distributed only small numbers of pack to a handful of dealers, and some of these were later recalled to supply orders from large-scale farmers. The campaign team was over reliant on the survey of agro-dealer intentions. It should have intervened to drive these commitments into actions.

• Misconceptions about inoculants are held by agro-dealers. An efficient input supply chain would release agro-dealers from the burden of buying a fridge, yet agro-dealers continue to claim the need for a fridge to store the product. Additional effort is required to create an enabling and conducive environment. Alternative options that could be explored include: i) suppliers to take back the un-sold stock ii) elaborate policies that stimulate and incentivise out-growers and micro-finance schemes to be input aggregators. The government could help toward lowering interest rates and favour agriculture lending; iii) the use of containers for temporary storage of products could be incentivised; iv) an efficient supply chain could be achieved also through the use of ICT, with village based agro-dealers that take farmer orders and the information is processed to inform distribution and stock (Apps of this type are already operational in Kenya through Mercy Corps and Mastercard Foundation funded projects).

• Farmers set planting dates according to the weather. Climate uncertainty made it difficult to predict when planting would take place. As a consequence, the scheduling of the screenings did not always come at the same point in the agricultural calendar for farmers. Each motorbike is only able to screen the video to one village per day. In order to reach all targeted villages, and to keep the costs low by using few motorbikes, the schedule of the village-based screenings needed to be planned ahead, resulting in some communities being reached ahead of the cropping season, and others very close to planting.

6. Looking forward

The GALA team will work over the coming months to gather more results from the interviews with the farmers involved in the video screenings. This should provide agro-dealers with a concrete benchmark for their sales. Furthermore, the quantification of how the awareness of farmers has changed as result of the campaign can provide information about the cost-effectiveness of using videos to promote integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) practices.

Gala and Soybean Innovation Lab worked together as both saw the need to provide tailored information through a stepwise approach, which is tight to the ‘pockets’ of farmers. All campaign materials developed by CABI are based on a single document known as the technical and messaging brief. The technical brief recommends 3 technologies that collectively cost around $75 a hectare to implement, for a crop that has traditionally been seen as not requiring inputs. Without inputs, good agricultural technology yields are around 30% of their potential. Research scientists have broken down the technology to contributions made by good seed, fertiliser and inoculant. This will provide a logical order for stepwise investment – which would maximise the return to farmers if they could be encouraged into a positive cycle of on-farm investment, provided the output markets held up. The campaign team has worked with Soybean Innovation Lab to host a workshop of over 200 NGOs, extensionists, agro-dealers and lead farmers which confirmed buy-in for a stepwise approach based on clear bundles of soybean inputs. Further feedback has suggested that women farmers in particular are risk averse. This has led to the campaign team talking with some of the leading crop

insurance companies in the region to see if soybean could be added to their cover packages. This would either safeguard the farmer, and/or the credit provider against risks associated with climate uncertainty.

Whilst the campaigns team focused on agro-input providers – a key lesson is that it should also have spent time developing relationships with credit providers. Interest rates are very high in Africa, and this often includes local saving and loan schemes. These schemes need to lend money for enterprises that offer a realistic expectation of a significant return on investment.

7. Sources of Evidence

• GALA Project report: Report on campaigns’ impact and recommendations for soybean value chain June 2019

• GALA Project results from focus groups discussions; blogs; and story-maps that have been produced to map the site of every screening, the estimated gender breakdown of the farmers attending, and the languages of films.

• N2Africa reports o https://n2africa.org/n2africa-annual-report-2017 o https://n2africa.org/highlights-annual-report-2017 o https://n2africa.org/n2africa-tanzania-annual-report-2018