Treatment of paddy seeds and scientific application of fungicide in Odisha, the creation of an ‘Azolla’ mother pit in Andhra Pradesh, insights into mint cultivation in Uttar Pradesh, and natural remedies for diarrhoea in cattle in Karnataka. You learn about all these and more from the nearly 4,000 videos produced by Digital Green, a seven-year-old development venture that is turning members of farming communities into filmmakers.

Working in 10 States, the NGO promotes sharing of best practices between rural communities by partnering with voluntary organisations and government programmes like the National Rural Livelihoods Mission.

There are testimonials too, from those who have benefited. Dharmender Kumar says the videos helped increase rice yields through intensification methods at his village, Ghosaut, in Minapur block, Muzaffarpur (Bihar).

“The villagers earlier followed traditional methods and broadcast their paddy seed. After seeing our videos, they used the new practices and yields shot up to 120-130 kg/kattha. That’s a benefit of 40-50 kg,” says Kumar, a ‘village resource person’ working with a women’s self-help group (SHG), in one of the videos on the NGO’s website.

The platform

Digital Green’s instructional videos, shot in 20 languages so far, have reached over 7,600 villages; and more than 500 community members like Kumar have been trained to produce similar videos.

The 90-member team is led by Rikin Gandhi (33), who grew up in the US and graduated in aerospace engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University, respectively.

“We set out trying to find out whether there is a role for information technology among small-scale farming communities. I connected with Microsoft Research India in 2006 through a research project, which later spun off into an independent organisation in 2008,” he says.

Four to six local community members, usually associated with an ongoing programme, are trained to produce 8-10 minute videos. Shot over 3-4 days, the footage includes demonstration of techniques to improve agricultural efficiency and knowledge-sharing through testimonials. The content is vetted by experts from partnering institutions.

“The videos are shown using a mobile phone-sized Pico projector, which is entrusted with a resource person in each of the 5,000 villages we work in. The videos are shown every two weeks and feedback is encouraged,” explains Gandhi.

Under a cost-sharing arrangement, while Digital Green takes cares of training and technical assistance, its partners fund the operational costs and the buying of cameras and $200 projectors. Additionally, the NGO has commercial partnerships with private enterprises interested in sourcing a specific commodity by promoting a new cultivation technique.

“Typically, they spend about $35-40 on demonstration plots and displaying techniques to get one farmer to adopt a practice. We’ve managed to lower the cost of video production to $3.50 per adoption of new practice,” he says.

Way forward

The venture aims to expand its activities in India to cover micro-credit and savings, and nutrition and healthcare. Overseas, it has pilot projects underway in Afghanistan, Mozambique and Tanzania, and one recently in Ethiopia.

Digital Green’s videos have received about 2.5 million hits on YouTube, while a Facebook game called ‘Wonder Village’ gets players to create a village economy by interacting with the NGO’s farmers. The group has collaborated on a 13-episode reality TV show called ‘Green Champion’, which is set to air soon.

Back in Ghosaut, Kumar is convinced of technology’s power to transform rural India. “The additional money from higher yield goes towards the children’s education, healthcare and better food,” he beams.

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