University of Sussex

Through the creation of a podcast series, Agricultural Voices Syria aimed to reconnect Syrian farmers and other actors in agri-food value chains with the country’s experts, helping them to start Syria’s long term recovery.

One of the most critical impacts that the Syrian armed conflict had on agriculture was the collapse of extension services for farmers which, before 2011, were provided by the government. The transition to a free-market economy has added further challenges.

Agricultural Voices Syria aimed to address these difficulties by promoting capacity building. It provided Syrian agricultural experts living in Turkey and Syria with knowledge and new media to sustain farmers in northwest Syria. The experts created a podcast series that was accessible to those working in the Syrian agricultural sector.

The project had 4 stages:

The project began by organising the activities, selecting the team and purchasing equipment.
A training course was organized in the second stage, and the agricultural experts prepared 15 podcast episodes. At the same time, a smartphone app was designed, and the project was promoted on social media.
In the third stage, the podcasts and app were promoted among Syrian farmers. Over 1000 responses have been collected.
In the last stage, the survey data was analysed, and the research results has been disseminated to stakeholders and wider audiences.

At the end of this project, the research team accessed the SSRP Impact Fund to generate further impact consolidating AVS dissemination and broadening its scope.

For more information, head to our website at: https://agricultural-voices.sussex.ac.uk/, or contact Mirela Barbu at M.E.Barbu@sussex.ac.uk or Martin Spinelli at M.J.Spinelli@sussex.ac.uk.