Award-winning partner Adama Zongo from Radio rurale du Burkina shares his best story
July 16, 2010 | Category: News from Our Partners
Posted By: Brenda Jackson
Adama Zongo - editor-in-chief of Farm Radio broadcasting partner Radio rurale du Burkina
Adama Zongo has been the editor-in-chief of Farm Radio broadcasting partner Radio rurale du Burkina – the national broadcaster – since 2005. But Adama is not new to rural radio broadcasting. He started his career in July 1982 after being trained at the Centre Interafricain d’Études en Radio Rurale de Ouagadougou, in Burkina Faso. Adama first received Farm Radio International script packages in the 1980s, when the organization was known as the Developing Countries Farm Radio Network. From 1985 to 1990, Adama dabbled in print journalism as a reporter for the national daily newspaper Sidwaya. But his love for radio brought him back to broadcasting in 1990, when he started working for Radio rurale du Burkina as a trainer of local radio broadcasters.
Radio rurale du Burkina produces many radio programs on rural topics such as: improved seeds, dry season crops, irrigation, organic manure, fodder production, production of crops such as cowpeas, rice and corn, and diversification of agricultural production; as well as climate change which, Adama stresses, has a significant impact on agricultural activities.
In all his years as a rural radio broadcaster, Adama says the best story he covered was in 1984. The story was about a bank’s inconsistent practices in informing farmers about purchase prices for inputs. Adama explains that each year, before the growing season, the bank estimated the input needs of farmers without setting a fixed price for the inputs. It was only after the inputs were distributed that the bank set the prices. The farmers did not understand why the bank was unable to set the prices before they distributed the inputs. They felt cheated and were convinced that the bank was trying to rob them. After these concerns were broadcast, the bank felt the need to provide the farmers with more information. They started an awareness campaign to educate farmers on agricultural credit.
As editor-in-chief of Radio rurale du Burkina, Adama says his station regularly covers events such as la Journée Nationale du Paysan, where farmers have face-to-face discussions with Burkina Faso’s president and voice their concerns, as well as events such as International Women’s Day.
Adama is a two-time winner of Farm Radio International scriptwriting competitions. In 2008, Adama’s script on organic fertilizer was a winning entry in the scriptwriting competition on African Farmers’ Strategies for Coping with Climate Change. An audio production of his script, Organic fertilizer within easy reach, was produced for World Food Day 2008, with the help of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Read his winning entry for the scriptwriting competition on smallholder farmer innovation: “The Motor Pump Mill“.
Listen to one of his award-winning scripts (french only).
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Tags: Africa, Audio, awards, Broadcaster
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Even in very poor communities, radio penetration is vast. There are more than 800 million radios in developing countries. An average of one in ten people has a radio.
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Farm Radio International is a Canadian-based, not-for-profit organization working in direct partnership with approximately 300 radio broadcasters in 39 African countries to fight poverty and food insecurity.
