Problem: Inherent to terrace agriculture is that such farms are in mountainous regions, creating logistical barriers to obtaining knowledge of best practices; for the same reasons, these regions are also associated with high rates of female illiteracy. These logistical challenges also inhibit NGOs and experts from visiting these sites.
Our Solutions:
•To disseminate best farming practices, we are creating and testing a SAK picture book of ~100 best practices (indigenous and scientific) targeted to illiterate women.
•Part of the concept of the picture book is to cause new ideas to flow into remote, rural areas to stimulate demand by retail stalls for products and/or to give ideas to rural entrepreneurs and local trades people (e.g. blacksmiths).
•We are exploring the use of cell phones to gather the needs of rural farmers including women and to provide a technical support “help line”, linking technical support to farmers in real-time.
•The SAK picture book will also be posted online, so that it can be disseminated to hillside farmers around the world including in East Africa.