About Us

AMAD is an association composed of Agricultural Journalists from almost all African countries mainly   Francophone and Anglophone countries. The group was transformed and matured from mainly radio journalists who were put together by Farm Radio International of Canada that organised a fundraising training for agricultural journalist in Africa. 

Declining soil fertility, impacts of climate change such as increase in the frequency of droughts and long mid-season droughts is causing food insecurity among smallholder farmers in Africa. Access to relevant and timely information can improved food security and economy of african farmers. This can mean timely access to good quality seed and technologies resulting in good crop management and hence improved yields.  These are some of the issues AMAD would like to address in terms of information dissemination more especially to the small scale farmers who are the worst affected by climate change.

Therefore, upon seeing that radio alone as a communication media these days needs supplementation with other media such as social media, print and other media to make it a two way communication, this association is not developed to dwell solely on radio but on multi-media. 

Why is AMAD formed? The vision is to promote appropriate farming technology using multimedia for food security in Africa. 

How will the Association achieve this? AMAD’s mission is to modernise agriculture through timely and relevant agricultural information sharing.

The objectives of this association are as follows

1. To facilitate the sharing of relevant information on farming practices that are  resilient to climate change in Africa.
2. To build group members financial and technical capacity.
3. To promote sharing of timely and relevant agricultural research findings to the farmers at the local level.
4. To be a centre for all relevant agricultural information in Africa.

A list of priorities that need immediate funding?

1. Funding for Steering Committee Meeting: The committee which has always been having meetings on online has a membership of …… (list attached in the annex) so the first task is to have a face to face meeting in one of the choice countries preferably in South Africa or Ghana but not ruling out any preference of the funder. The meeting will facilitate developing and formalising of  the protocols that the association will be following in making sure that the accountability is followed. At this meeting the association wants to also share some skills as it wants to be reliable, new, appreciated and timely source of information that can help young Africans to love farming and make Africa a food basket. 
2. To be a funding and accountability link: The biggest challenge that African Agricultural Journalists who have natural passion in Agriculture face is funding for them to travel to the people who are affected or who have innovations so that they can facilitate sharing. This group want to help each other to generate funding that can help them disseminate, new and appropriate agricultural information.  The production of such materials share be produced in various countries of origin using local media houses. This association shall be resource where we can draw information and expertise. 
3. Capacity building:  The group needs attachments and covering of various agricultural seminars and workshops on new agricultural and climate change information as capacity building. It will also need some local and international trainings in agricultural reporting using various media channels.  Therefore this association will join membership of various local and international organisations such as Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Farm Radio International, Commonwealth of Learning, Yenkasa-FAO and many more.