Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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www.acmad.ne)
by a nomad in the desert of southeastern Algeria when he
declined the gift of a radio offered by the young meteorologist researching
desert locusts near Djanet. The nomad did agree that information was vital
to his survival. “Just tell me where it has rained. I will know where to
take my flocks” (personal communication with Boulahya, Hirir, Algeria,
February 1988). He explained that he was familiar with every rise and fall
of the terrain and would lead his animals every rainy season to meet the
water as it flowed in streams to form pools at low spots in the landscape.
After watering his flocks at the pools, he would then lead them uphill to
graze on the new grass. But however valuable rainfall information might
have been to him, he could only receive it as long as his radio worked.
A radio, carried across the isolated stretches of the Sahara, becomes little
more than excess baggage once its batteries die.
Inspired by the potential that drought monitoring and prediction tech-
nologies hold for improving the quality of life in rural Africa, the mete-
orologist Mohammed Boulahya (one of the authors of this chapter, who
later became the Founder and Director of ACMAD) worked with herders
and farmers to design the RANET system (NOAA, 2003). Ten years after
his encounter with the nomad, the Freeplay wind-up radio
(http://www.
freeplayfoundation.org)
was designed to operate without batteries. Sub-
sequently modified to incorporate a solar panel and other improvements
suggested by rural listeners, the Freeplay radio was to become the front
line of the RANET communications interface for remote communities.
The RANET program, which soon will be established in five other African
countries, is managed by ACMAD staff and faculty at the University of
Oklahoma. Management of national-level content is the responsibility of
each country's national meteorological service, which may in turn collab-
orate with other government offices or nongovernmental organizations to
develop national RANET content.
Delighted with the advantages of this new technology, women in the
dusty village of Bankilare in western Niger continued the trend of com-
munity-driven innovation, further challenging ACMAD to modify the tech-
nology so that they could create information as well as receive it (NOAA,
2003). ACMAD found the answer to its plea in the Wantok solar-powered
FM radio transmitter. So compact that it ships in a 28-kg suitcase, this
low-cost and fully portable FM radio equipment proved strikingly durable
in the harsh, dry conditions of the pilot site in Bankilare. Villagers credited
this new technology with having transformed Bankilare into an informa-
tion oasis where they could receive broadcasts where and when they needed
them—in their homes, in neighboring hamlets, and in the pastures with
their flocks (Shapley, 2001).
The subsequent addition of WorldSpace Digital Satellite (WDS;
http://
www.firstvoiceint.org)
radio provided a vital link with the outside world,
permitting access not only to drought information, but also to a host of
other information relevant to development. Unlike unwieldy satellite re-
ceivers with large dishes, the WDS radio receiver is comparable in size to
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