Farmers' Internet cafe in Zambia

In the last seven years, Medalido Makombe has been struggling to find spares for his boom sprayer. Fortunately, his spares are now on their way from India to Makombe farms, about 45 Kilometres south of Kabwe.

Medalido is among the few privileged farmers that have been browsing the Internet to get information on various issues affecting them as farmers.

The Farmers Internet Café, hosted by the Kabwe Farmers Association was established by the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU), through support from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the USA’s department of Agriculture through the Education Development and Democracy Initiative (EDDI) programme.

The basis of these projects, observes ZNFU deputy Executive Director ZNFU Ndambo Ndambo, was to link the mother body with affiliates at district level while at the same time providing access to information to individual union members.

Mr. Ndambo said: “We initially wanted to build the capacity of our members in this new technology so that they can be writing e-mails to us directly if they wished and also inquire about the various services that the ZNFU is offering to the members.”

“Our members have benefited greatly,” he said: “For instance, farmers were able to compare the prices of Tobacco in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia on the Internet and through this network they were able to negotiate for a better price.”

“The first reason we accepted this project as Kabwe Farmers Association was to make money for our association and secondly, to give farmers affiliated to the association a chance to access information cheaply,” said Sven Pihiblad, Farmer and Project Coordinator, adding that the association also concentrated on providing agricultural information such as marketing.

Mr. Pihiblad said though the Internet is new and most of the information available was coming from the developed world, much of it is complicated and not relevant to the local situation, there were countries that were emerging like India that are able to provide information at small-scale level.

In Kabwe, he said, most farmers were looking for technology to improve or to add value to their products. He added that they were looking for Information on equipment like hammer mills, oil expellers, and spare parts.

“They are also actively looking for partners to assist them to develop. They are looking for information on people to network with, to get good prices on their products and to get viable capital for their projects,” he said.

Agri-business experts say farmers need information to improve their production. “Without information”, Precious Hamukwala says, “we cannot go anywhere and lets not neglect these rural farmers. They need technology so that they can improve their production, purchasing and marketing decisions. They need to be connected with the rest of the world.”

With the two pilot projects, farmers are able to know who is selling and who the potential buyer is. They are able to know were the buyers are and at what price on the market.

“This worked out well,” Ms. Hamukwala who was also the Project Consultant said, adding that during the assessment, farmers were complaining of briefcase buyers who were setting their own market price yet the price of maize elsewhere was better than what the dealer was asking for.

Apart from accessing business opportunities, the farmers were able to know general marketing trends in the agricultural sector, they were able to write letters to their relatives as well as enquire about any other services that the union or any other organisation of interest to them was offering.

“We are happy when the farmers come as a group to request for specific information and our Internet personnel are on hand to help them,” Mr. Pihiblad added.

The Kabwe Internet café has provided income for the association as well as enabled it to diversify their business activities.

To operate profitably farmers pay K500 per minute for using the Internet. The public is also allowed to use it at the same rate.

The Café in Kabwe is able to generate over K3 million per week. Mr. Pihiblad said. This, he said, was sustaining the operations of the centre.

A survey conducted prior to the establishment of the Internet Cafés in Monze and Kabwe by the ZNFU among farmers revealed that, though the technology was unfamiliar to most farmers particularly women and girls, they were ready to embrace the technology as long as it was able to address problems such as sources of inputs and markets for the produce.

The survey also revealed that men, unlike women, were able to access information from various sources, through interaction in places such as bars, where women rarely go.

In addition, the survey showed that they needed marketing information on the Internet particularly on maize because it was the most widely sought commodity.

However, the introduction of the technology was something unusual to most farmers, hence the need for some basic training for the beneficiaries.

Ms. Hamukwala describes the initial stages as having been an exciting moment for the farmers; a mixture of fear and ignorance.

“I trained three groups and out of these, the youths were more receptive to the technology and were quick to understand and use the Internet,” Ms. Hamukwala said.

One of the lessons learnt from the project was that farmers were receptive to the technology, as long as the benefit was explained to them.

Ms. Hamukwala said: “If there is to have massive campaigns, it should be focused on youths and young people with some ability to read and write because they can actually pass on the information to the elders.”

She added that today’s children receiving Internet training were the farmers of tomorrow and this meant that there shall be farmers who will embrace ICT and be able to benefit from it.

The results of the free 18 months project also showed that while the Internet communication technology has been in Zambia since 1994, farmers especially small scale ones have had no opportunity to it.

Recent statistics show that there were over 50,000 Internet users by 2004 compared to only 250 in 1994.

The Zambia National Farmers Union is determined to strengthen communication between the union and its members by ensuring that they provide communication equipment to farmers.

To this end, the ZNFU intends to introduce radio communication links in selected Farmer information centres.

“Introduction of radio communication systems in some selected parts of the country would work for the benefit of farmers.  More centres in Solwezi, Kasama, Mansa and Choma would be connected soon through support from the Norwegian government,” said Ndambo

The union has sourced over 75,000 Euros for the expansion of the communication project that will facilitate smooth flow of information between the union and its clientele.

One key issue that needs to be recognised is that the internet must be reliable, as any forms of interruption will discourage regulars and would-be users.

The absence of reliable sources of power, establishment of solar panelled computer systems would be ideal, and this would in turn help rural communities where electricity is unavailable.

“ If farmers come to the café and found that it was not working, they would assume it will never work and this means they will never come back to the centre,” said Ms. Marjorie Habasonda, a Communications Expert with Participatory Ecological Land Use and Management (PELUM) in Zambia.

 PELUM is a regional non-governmental organisation that is also trying to promote and advocate for the use of ICT among farmers.

Firstly, Ms. Habasonda adds: “There should also be a massive awareness campaigns before the establishment of the café so that farmers can appreciate the technology.”

The Internet is no doubt an important tool for development but it should not be used in isolation with other traditional media, observes Ms. Hamukwala.

 It should be used in combination with, for instance, newspapers because of the limitations, which developing countries have, such as poor infrastructure.

In combination with other media, we can reduce the communications barriers by printing information from the Internet or publishing it or broadcasting it through radio.

In cases where farmers are illiterate, there is need to translate information on the Internet or there should be an information extension agent available to help access information and pass it on to them.

With low literate levels among most farmers, Ms. Habasonda recommends that it would be appropriate for websites to be in local languages or probably devise a translated version of the content on the site.

ICT is key to agricultural development. Without fast flow of information especially now that the country has liberalised its economy, it will be very difficult to compete favourably in a liberalised sector.

Farmers need to have information at the right time and in the most affordable way. The Internet is the cheapest form of ICT, and though initial installation cost is high, it still remains the cheapest mode of information dissemination.