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ASHC is committed to working in partnership to communicate down-to-earth messages on integrated soil fertility management. Central to this ethos is a commitment to build capacity to create more effective communications – especially with smallholder farmers. Too often materials that are supposed to be targeted at smallholders are very hard to understand. Scientists in particular are not usually trained in how to create compelling information that is intuitive and easy to remember. It is very easy to forget that smallholders often work with very basic equipment and so, for example, using non-standards measurements such e.g. an arm’s length is better than saying 45 centimetres.
All materials here are free for reuse and republication – please refer to our copyright details. For this reason ASHC provides both PDF and word versions of ‘How to…’ materials.
Writing & structuring material
How to…produce farmer-friendly printed information Word version
Examples of farmer-friendly materials for printing developed by as can be seen in Location specific farmer and extension worker materials on different cropping systems (Level 3)
How to… develop print material for low-literacy farmers Word version Powerpoint
How to…produce farmer-friendly sms and text messages for extension campaigns Word version Powerpoint
Testing before production at scale
How to… pre-test extension materials with smallholder farmers – coming soon
Reaching the target audience
How to…produce a dissemination plan to scale-up ISFM approaches Word version
ASHC is building an evidence base to underpin the recommendation on good practice in communications. ASHC will be carrying out some experiments to further test different communications approaches – as literature in agriculture is limited. Most of the research on communications is associated with human health. Soil health is more complex in that there are often many viable options and an economic case to set out. This is very challenging in a low-literacy environment. .
Literature review and guidelines
Effective print material for low-literacy populations Word version Powerpoint