Puppet goat newsreader covers food security, grain prices

Chévrina is ably assisted in her interviews with prominent figures in the world of agriculture by a marionette gecko named Ragui, along with a cast of other animals who appear in a variety of sketches exploring agricultural issues that are close to the lives of the programme’s viewers.

Market information services

TV Koodo is the latest venture of the Institut africain de bio-économie rurale (IABER), based in Koudougou, which is working to enhance the state of agricultural market information services, as well as to boost public awareness of key agricultural issues within Burkina Faso. IABER recently launched an observatory to monitor and collect up-to-date prices for cattle and cereal crops, and wanted to disseminate this information as widely as possible. They then needed a medium through which these prices would be distributed, along with investigations into pressing agricultural issues, such as food security, grain marketing and land rights.

IABER wished to get as close as possible to its target audience – the farmers themselves and others involved in local agricultural and livestock markets – and so looked for an entirely novel means of communication. At the same time, they wanted to offer content that would be useful and interesting to the general public, as well as policy makers and donors.

For this, IABER felt that the national television network (Radio et Télévision du Burkina, RTB) would be the most effective medium, since it attracts viewers in all areas of the country. With financial support from the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), IABER developed the idea of a TV show, in partnership with local organizations. Among these are Manivelle Production, which handles technical production, and the Association des gens de Wisga, which developed the puppet characters and writes the scripts.

With puppets, the producers feel that they can interview guests in a more direct and popular way. The sassy Chévrina has very quickly become a superstar whose image has come to symbolize Burkinese agriculture in the minds of viewers, and in particular of children. They naturally know precisely when the programme is on, and remind their parents it’s time to watch TV Koodo.

Thanks to TV Koodo, both producers and buyers (consumers, middlemen, etc.) now have access to information about which local markets are offering the best prices. Farmers can negotiate better prices for their produce, enabling them to make better decisions, or to seize new business opportunities. In one example, the programme was particularly effective in improving understanding of the best use of phytosanitary products, permitting a considerable reduction in accidents on the part of the producers. Better still, now that both sellers and buyers are more aware of the prices of produce on local market, they have begun to lose some of their traditional mutual suspicion and antagonism.

Problems of success

In response to popular demand, the national TV service often repeats the programmes. However, the programmes were never intended to be broadcast more than once, so that while the agricultural sketches may remain topical, the market prices of cattle and cereals are no longer correct. To solve this problem, the programme’s producers are coordinating with RTB to ensure that the repeat broadcasts contain current market prices.

The producers have also realized that there is a demand for market prices to be broadcast more often than just once a month. Thus, in the future, TV Koodo will be split into two separate programmes. One will be devoted to various agricultural themes, and will continue to be shown once a month, while the other will be broadcast at a shorter interval, and will offer only prices.

TV Koodo only recently celebrated its first anniversary, yet the show has already won the Galian Prize, a Burkinese award for excellence in communications, as the best television information magazine of 2005. The country’s Minister of Information himself presented the award to TV Koodo.

All in all, not a bad effort from a superstar goat that doesn’t mince – or graze – her words.

Chloé Aicha Boro is IABER’s director of communications, Koudougou, Burkina Faso. She recently conducted an evaluation of the TV Koodo project.