Developing media market systems to address agricultural constraints

Partnering with mass media to provide much needed agricultural information to farmers whilst also benefiting media ratings and revenues.

The Alliances Caucuses Programme (ALCP) in Georgia was established to increase incomes and employment for small-scale livestock and honey producers (LHPs) in rural Georgia by developing the agricultural markets they participate in.  

Lack of access to reliable and relevant agricultural information was negatively impacting rural farmers and beekeepers’ participation in agricultural markets. They were disadvantaged in negotiations with informal traders and largely excluded from formal markets.

ALCP focused on trying to change the way mass media works by demonstrating to them that there was a real demand for agricultural content by rural households. By tapping into this large audience their ratings would go up, and they would be able to attract commercial advertising revenue, increased sales, or (in the case of public media) a greater proportion of the public media budget. In turn this would mean LHP's would learn about new practices, technology, input supply markets, regulations and consumers. They would also be able to verify market prices,  strengthening their negotiating positions and increasing their incomes.

The ALCP partnered with individual newspapers, regional and national television - and the results were impressive. 

Evidence methodology

This is a qualitative research supported by data from surveys done by the programme and secondary sources. The core findings of the report are based on interviews to members of the ALCP team and about a dozen key stakeholders. mainly from business owners, media organisations and academia.

This programme's results measurement system passed an audit against the DCED standard in 2014 and 2017.