Podcasts Reach Peruvian Villages

This article, from the online BBC News, gives a snapshot of a new pilot project using podcasting to get agricultural information to farmers in Peru's remote Andean mountain villages like Chanta Alta.

The United Kingdom (UK) charity Practical Action has united old and new technology to podcast twice-monthly updates to eight information centres in the Andean Cajamarca region. These telecentres, many of which are run on solar power, automatically download the programmes onto CDs to rebroadcast them on local radio stations. The charity has found it effective to distribute audio material to local people, reporting that they prefer listening in their own dialect to being sent the written word.

Each area within Cajamarca is sent information relevant to them. In Chanta Alta, for example, the podcasts concentrate on cattle-raising husbandry and on dairy production. In nearby Chilete, podcasts are being used to give farmers tips on growing grapes. Practical Action's team is training local people to make their own podcasts.


Dr David Grimshaw, international team leader on the project, hopes to expand access to the podcasts: "We are also hoping that the database of podcasts on the internet will be used not just by Peruvian farmers but other farmers in Latin America. Our plans are to test out some of the technologies that would enable people to listen to the podcasts on a mobile phone or a PDA, in fact on any device that can play an MP3 file."