Watch CKWs talk about their work By 2014, Grameen Foundation aims to build a cross country network of information intermediaries in Uganda. Based at the grassroots, these intermediaries use mobile technology to deliver agricultural information both to and from the smallholder farmers. We believe such a network of Community Knowledge Workers will revolutionize agricultural extension in the country, increasing yields, reducing losses, and increasing incomes of poor, smallholder farmers.
Our Reason
In Uganda, most people earn their livelihoods and feed their families through agriculture but don't have access to critical information - like which crops to plant when, how to prevent and treat crop diseases, and where they can earn the most for their produce. At the same time, organizations that seek to improve agriculture are handicapped by the lack of an efficient channel through which they can learn about farmers' needs, challenges and practice or disseminate the information on proven agronomic techniques that they generate. It is this disconnect that Community Knowledge Worker Program seeks to address.
Our Approach
The CKW team has built and continues to expand and fine tune a database of actionable agricultural information, contributed by agriculture research organizations and other experts, and reviewed by an Expert Review Board, that CKWs disseminate to farmers.
We work with leaders in agricultural extension to collect, review and package this information for dissemination over the mobile phone. At the same time we create cutting edge mobile phone applications which either transmit this information or administer surveys. Most critically we are recruiting, training and supporting a corps of CKWs at the grassroots level - farmer leaders who have been carefully recruited and selected from among and by their peers to ensure they are trustworthy, and have a spirit of service. This corps currently has 98 CKWs operating in Kapchorwa, Eastern Uganda and this number will be growing over the coming 3 years.
