Agricultural communication, Transfer of technology, Public awareness, Agricultural production

Food and agriculture have been the two basic issues that affect all, the rich and the poor. Those who suffer most from the food scarcity in the world are 1200 million poor people, of whom nearly 800 million are still under- nourished. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has been struggling hard to share knowledge on hunger, malnutrition and poverty. In 20th session of the FAO Conference in November, 1979, World Food Day was decided to be celebrated, to pay tribute to farmers, who produce food. The date chosen – 16th October – is the anniversary of the founding of FAO. World Food Day is celebrated every year in more than 150 countries.

World Food Day (WFD) is a reminder of FAO's continuing search for a lasting solution to the problems of hunger and poverty in the world. 'Food for All' was the goal set forth under WFD so that it becomes a tool to ensure enough food for present and future generations.

Broadly, the objectives of the World Food Day are the following :

Communication of above WFD messages through formal, informal and non-formal media channels was noted to be the most important component of the World Food Day celebrations. Be it information for public awareness, or be it the information on transfer of technology to the developing world; or be it the information on how women and the underprivileged could be involved in decision making and activities that influence their lives. Communication was an important aspect for every section of activity.

Immediately after deciding on celebrating the World Food Day, FAO extended cooperation to various national governments and to Non-governmental Organisations to celebrate the World Food Day as active partners. The Indian Association for Advancement of Science took on itself the responsibility of organising World Food Day at the Non-governmental Organisation level, right from the year 1981, when the World Food Day was first celebrated. Realising scarcity of funds, but the importance of reaching out to a large number of masses, IAAS considered it appropriate to involve agricultural communicators from different channels of mass media.

It was observed at that time that a new stream of agricultural communicators had just begun with few graduates and post-graduates in agricultural sciences and engineering, entering into agricultural reporting. That was a significant development and those who had come from such a background had obviously opted for this career because of their keen interest. Their zeal was similar to that of young scientists who enter active research for the pleasure of achieving a breakthrough and earning a social status for themselves. Financial package does not remain the most important element, though that is also a consideration. We considered it appropriate to enter into an innovative activity and recognise services of outstanding agricultural communicators.

With this background, the Association launched World Food Day Awards beginning 1982, for agricultural communicators in the following categories :

(i) English Press (ii) Hindi Press (iii) Television (iv) Radio and (v) Wall Poster.

An award was also instituted for a distinguished scientist who had also used the communication means to create an awareness of his work to scientific community as well as to masses.

It was decided that preference would be given to articles and contributions on the theme of the year.

Observation on initial phase – early 80s

During the early eighties when the WFD was launched, the theme for the year would to be announced sometimes in April or May, whereas the function
took place on October 16. The time availability in announcing the awards and calling for nominations normally was short. All the members of the Association had to pursue with various agencies and communicators so that a large number of nominations / entries were received.

Initial phases required vigorous pursuing. This also involved enthusing television and radio to make agriculture specific programmes. Print media fared good while the number of articles appearing or submitted were substantially high, though varying with the topic of the year. Sometimes a common topic would attract larger number of articles, whereas in the other year, with a different topic, the number would be low.

The examples are, when during 1984 the theme was 'Women and Agriculture'; in 1986 the theme was 'Fishermen and Fishing Community' and in 1988 the theme was 'Rural Youth', very few articles were submitted or even scanned from newspapers. Our analysis found that these three issues were taken as the ones having indirect bearing on agricultural production, and as such, though their importance in agricultural production and rural development was significant, it did not receive attention.

Though the World Food Day was instituted in 1981, the first two years had a general celebration on 'Food for All'. In the third year the theme was 'Food Security'. A Regional Conference on Food Scarcity was organised in Bangkok in the middle of the year which generated lot of interest. The onset of the 1981 was also the year when structural changes in a number of countries started and the sub-Saharan Africa wailed under draught.

The Nairobi Conference of 1981 on 'Renewable Sources of Energy' had already focussed attention of the globe on availability of energy to cook the food that we eat. That year saw food security being covered from various aspects, mainly from storage, preservation, food aid and food trade. The major contributors to these areas were those who were looking into different aspects of agricultural development.

A major point to notice is that the entry of qualified agricultural graduates and post-graduates brought around a major breakthrough in agricultural communication in the early days. A few youngsters started writing on technological developments and breakethroughs after understanding the same from the scientists. In the initial period, the information officers and the public relations officers of agricultural institutes, universities and industries found it slightly uneasy as they were not able to push their views the way they wanted; and found that the handouts were scrutinised, querried and what was presented in the media articles was a critique and not just a simple reproduction. But that was the turning point.

Observations on mid 80s

As a major thrust on alleviation of rural poverty was launched in the middle of eighties and agricultural and non agricultural rural universities were promoted for large scale employment and income generation in rural areas, thus better interaction and understanding emerged. But, with the multi disciplinary nature of subject and the higher and tougher standards of information requirement posed by qualified agricultural communicators, it resulted in information generation from different originating sources to be of a better quality in content. Thus the middle of eighties was the period when a movement of sorts at the beginning of the decade really took roots and the younger generation of agricultural communicators slowly spread out to various mass media channels.

Observations on late 80s

In the later part of the eighties when the theme in 1989 was 'Food and the Environment' and in 1990 the theme was 'Food for the Future', there was much larger generation of articles and contributions in the mass media. After the 1988 'Montreal Protocol on Environment', the environmental concerns were already heightened and the impact of agriculture on environment and the impact of rural poverty on invironment were the two issues that had direct bearing. With the better understanding of scientific topics, the agricultural communicators focussed sharply on interrelating food and environment. This as a topic where not only the assigned agricultural communicators wrote but a large number of other communicators also interacted. The number of contributions corresponding to this was immense. Year 1989 and 1990 were also the preparatory years to the 'UN Conference on Environment and Development'. A true reflection of futuristic presentation could be observed in the articles that were received at the end of the decade of the eighties and the beginning of the decade of nineties.

Observations on early 90s

The theme for the year 1991 was 'Trees for Life'. Though the aim was to focus on various aspects of trees in food, fuel, fodder and general environment improvement, the focus somehow or other shifted mainly to the forestry aspect and the contributions restricted mainly to the issue of deforestation. The year observed a sudden decline in the rising trend of the contributions in the press on different aspects of the theme of the year. However, the quality of articles had shown a gradual improvement and even such articles that were received in 1991 focussed on policy issues, technology issues and financial issues relating to afforestation and environment.

In 1992, the theme was 'Food and Nutrition' and an 'International Conference on Nutrition' was organised jointly by the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organistion in December, 1992 at Rome. Therefore, a number of articles focussing on health aspects as well as on the nutrition aspects, emerged in the mass media. The impact of the 'UN Conference on Environment and Development' held in June, 1992 in Rio was observed in the articles that appeared on food and nutrition.

In 1993, the theme was 'Harvesting Nature's Diversity'. Picking from the Environment conference in 1992, various issues on bio-diversity, including the legal aspects, were very much at heart in the writings and programmes. Articles did discuss their relevance to India and to the globe.

In 1994, the theme was 'Water For Life'. A large population in the developing world is still devoid of safe drinking water. The three aspects that were clearly related to water were : availability and storage, health aspects of unsafe drinking water and the policies required for water availability. All through the year a number of contributions on these three aspects appeared separately and in large numbers. Very well researched articles were received. We had the largest number of articles received since the inception of the awards. Each one of them had considered an aspect and had gone indepth in presenting an overall case.

This is an indication of the journey of the World Food Day Awards from its inception in 1982 till 1994. This is the general observation on the qualitative change that has been witnessed during these 12 years in the field of agricultural communication. The fact remains that agricultural communication has moved a long way from 'handout reproduction' to 'indepth articles' on agricultural aspects.

It has also been observed that during the latter part of awards, most of the award winners were youngsters either in late twenties or early thirties. That was a very healthy sign and also indicates that the present day agricultural communication requires latest knowledge and information for reproducing agricultural information.

Communicators a part of scientific policy community

It has also been observed that during the last five years some of the agricultural communicators took part in major national and international conferences as a keynote speaker or as a panelist which indicates that the scientists and the experts consider them at par with them. That is an indicator of the qualitative improvement on the part of the communicators.

Justice on the growth pattern, in the field of agricultural communication during the period of the World Food Day Awards will, no doubt, require an indepth study. May be this paper will lead to some such studies in near future.