Beyond Striga Management: Learning Videos Enhanced Farmers’ Knowledge on Climate-Smart Agriculture in Mali


  •  Gerard Zoundji    
  •  Simplice Vodouhe    
  •  Florent Okry    
  •  Jeffery Bentley    
  •  Rigobert Tossou    

Abstract

This paper assesses the climate smart agricultural practices triggered by learning videos on integrated striga management, soil fertility and cost and benefit evaluation practices. Using household head interviews and focus group discussions, this study revealed that farmers have similar perceptions of climate change and related impacts in video-villages and in non-video-villages. However, farmers’ observation of climate change and related impacts are influenced by gender; men perceived more climate change and related impacts than women. In non-video villages, few respondents adopted crop rotation, intercropping, crop diversification, improved short-cycle seed varieties and zaï techniques as climate change adaptation strategies. Videos contribute more to the adoption of crop rotation, intercropping and fertilizer application for men than women. Videos on accounting (managing money) enable more women than men to enhance their cost-benefit evaluation practices for income improvement. During the interviews, women farmers in video-villages were eager to demonstrate their knowledge about cost and benefit evaluation. We also found that the yield of sorghum, millet and maize is high in video-villages and low in non-video-villages. Thus, using videos as extension tool is suitable for knowledge development and leads to the high adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices for food security.



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