Digital Green: Participatory video for agricultural extension

Abstract

Digital green is a research project that seeks to disseminate targeted agricultural information to small and marginal farmers in India using digital video. The unique components of digital green are (1) a participatory process for content production, (2) a locally generated digital video database, (3) human-mediated instruction for dissemination and training, and (4) regimented sequencing to initiate a new community. Unlike some systems that expect information or communication technology alone to deliver useful knowledge to marginal farmers, digital green works with existing, people-based extension systems and aims to amplify their effectiveness. While video provides a point of focus, it is people and social dynamics that ultimately make digital green work. Local social networks are tapped to connect farmers with experts; the thrill of appearing "on TV" motivates farmers; and homophily is exploited to minimize the distance between teacher and learner. In a four-month trial involving 16 villages (1070 households), digital green was seen to increase adoption of certain agriculture practices by a factor of six to seven times over classical person-only agriculture extension. The hardware investment was a TV and a DVD-player per village, and one digital camera and PC shared among all 16 villages. These results are very preliminary, but promising.