Elanco Animal Health and Farm Radio International Partner to Drive Change for Small-Scale Livestock Farmers in North Tanzania

Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (NYSE:ELAN) and Farm Radio International (FRI) have partnered to produce a 13-week series of radio programs designed to support and educate small-scale livestock farmers in North Tanzania to manage the challenges around livestock health and wellbeing, supporting a drive to greater food security, livestock health and care in the region.

FRI and Elanco are working closely with local radio stations - Sauti ya Injili and Loliondo FM - to produce a short series of interactive radio programs, enabling listeners to make informed decisions, and have access to relevant animal health care products and training. The project aims to use radio to reach a widespread, rural population which has little access to agricultural services and reaching women who are crucial in livestock keeping. At the same time, FRI supports and develops the local broadcasters with training support during the production and airing phases of the agricultural programs.

The programs are currently being aired until December 14 ^th 2018 as follows:

• Radio Sauti ya Injili for Kilimanjaro and Tanga with the frequencies 93.6 FM in Moshi every Thursday from 7:30 to 8:00 pm and repeats on Monday 6:00 to 6:30 pm.
• Loliondo FM with the frequency 107.7 airs every Tuesday from 8:00 to 8:30 pm and repeats on Saturday 8:00 to 8:30 pm.

Elanco’s support of the radio campaign with FRI forms part of a ground-breaking project to provide sustainable development solutions to address food insecurity in East African countries – Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. The East Africa Growth Accelerator (EAGA) is Elanco’s first pure ‘Shared Value’ project which is made possible through a $3.1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. The grant enables the registration, manufacturing and distribution of affordable high-quality veterinary products, along with intensive training initiatives for smallholder farmers and channel partners.

“By working with FRI, Elanco aims to support improved animal husbandry and health practices and effect behaviour change by sharing information through the powerful medium of radio. The 13-week series will focus on knowledge transfer on disease awareness, prevention and treatment, including important topics such as fly, tick and rodent control, Coccidiosis, Mycoplasmosis, poultry vaccination and product training facilitated by Elanco,” explains Maria Zampaglione, Elanco One Health and Shared Value advisor and project leader.

Livestock disease remains a significant threat to achieving food security in East Africa where currently 25 percent of protein from farm animals is lost due to animal illness¹, reducing the supply of high-quality milk, meat and eggs and creating significant economic losses for farmers.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN), 34 percent of the people in East Africa are undernourished².

“We think that radio presents a major opportunity to scale the important work of Elanco on livestock keeping. We really want to go beyond a simple one-way radio broadcast and instead build the capacity of local radio stations to produce interactive radio programs that are truly entertaining, two-way, and practical for the listening audience. We know livestock health is a topic that is crucial to the North of Tanzania and we are thrilled to have programs on the air to support small-scale livestock farmers in the region,” says Mark Leclair, Farm Radio International’s Manager of Communications.

Elanco’s goal through EAGA is to enable more than 240,000 dairy and poultry smallholder farmers to access small sized quality products by 2020. The grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation further helps achieve this goal of improving the lives of smallholder farmers through sustainable livestock production.

Learn more about Elanco's commitment to “Making a Difference” and the EAGA Shared Value project at Elanco.com.

References:

1 - African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal resources (AU-IBAR). Impact of livestock diseases in Africa. Published on 25 January 2013. Accessed on 1st June 2018 on http://www.au-ibar.org/vacnada-livestock-diseases?showall=1&limitstart

2 - FAO. 2017. Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition in Africa 2017. The food security and nutrition–conflict nexus: building resilience for food security, nutrition and peace. Accra. Accessed on 9th October 2018 on http://www.fao.org/3/a-i7967e.pdf.

About Elanco Animal Health

Elanco (NYSE: ELAN) is a global animal health company that develops products and knowledge services to prevent and treat disease in food animals and pets in more than 90 countries. With a 64-year heritage, we rigorously innovate to improve the health of animals and benefit our customers, while fostering an inclusive, cause-driven culture for more than 5,800 employees. At Elanco, we’re driven by our vision of food and companionship enriching life – all to advance the health of animals, people and the planet. Learn more at www.elanco.com.

About Farm Radio International

Farm Radio International is an international non-profit organization dedicated exclusively to serving African farming families and rural communities through radio. FRI currently works with more than 780 radio partners in 40 sub-Saharan African countries to fight poverty and food insecurity through high-quality radio programs that help small-scale African farmers help themselves. The radio station reaches tens of millions of small-scale farmers with life-changing information and opportunities to have a stronger voice in their own development, by providing a range of radio resources and training opportunities and working directly with select broadcasting partners on impact projects. Since 2007, FRI has worked with over 100 radio stations implementing more than 110 projects reaching more than 30 million farmers with interactive radio programming. Farm Radio International supports rural agricultural and economic development initiatives to communicate with small-scale farmers and rural households and support their efforts to innovate and affect change. www.farmradio.org.

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Contact information

Media:
Karin Gerbens
+ 32 476 97 8467
gerbens_karin@elanco.com