In remote areas with low literacy rates, showing animated videos in the local language demonstrating agricultural techniques results in high retention and adoption rates of those techniques, found researchers from Michigan State University.
The study, published in the journal Information Technology for Development, demonstrated that two years after being shown an educational animated video on a postharvest bean storage method, farmers in Mozambique had a 97% retention rate and 89% adoption of the storage solution.
According to Julia Bello-Bravo, the study’s lead author, these results are crucial since developing and deploying scalable educational solutions for farmers in developing countries remains an elusive goal.
“These animated intervention strategies are viable for scaling since they can be produced in the local languages of the farmers and distributed through readily available resources such as smartphones,” said Bello-Bravo, assistant professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. “It’s a cost-effective approach to reach isolated communities that might not otherwise have access to these important agricultural solutions.”
Read more at Michigan State University
Image: Women in Mozambique watching an animated video on a post-harvest bean storage method. (Credit: Michigan State University)