The African Farm Radio Research Initiative (AFRRI) amassed a huge amount of invaluable data

In 2006, the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation provided Farm Radio International a grant to support the 42-month African Farm Radio Research Initiative (AFRRI), starting in 2007.

After two cycles of carefully planned and delivered, radio program campaigns involving 25 African radio stations in five countries, the AFRRI project amassed a huge amount of invaluable data. It demonstrates clearly that well-designed and produced radio campaigns using participatory methodologies can have a significant impact on the adoption of improved technologies by small-scale farmers on a large scale throughout the broadcast area of each radio station.

The data also demonstrate that such uptake of technologies can be even greater when innovative use of other ICTs, such as mobile phones and the Internet, is combined with the radio broadcasts. We call the methodology we designed and tested a Participatory Radio Campaign (PRC).

What Farm Radio International has learned from the AFRRI project can benefit other development communication initiatives. They have produced three reports that describe in detail what they did, how they did it, and what they learned. They are about Participatory Radio Campaigns, radio-based Market Information Services, and how new ICTs can make radio stronger.