Changing perspectives: Putting Participatory Video into practice in Rwanda

Participatory video is a technique that puts cameras in the hands of farmers. Researchers Melissa Bonilla, Maria Delfine, Charles Mwizerwa, Rhys Manners and Anna Muller share how this approach can provide insights for more inclusive agriculture. 

What do Rwanda’s picturesque landscapes look like to the farmers who grow maize, beans and potatoes there? What do they focus on when deciding which crops to grow? What matters most to their families?

To better answer these questions, we embarked on an enlightening journey with Maja Tillmann, a community filmmaker and agroecologist expert in participatory video processes with extensive experience working with Indigenous communities in China, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama, and Mexico. This intense learning experience that allowed us to immerse ourselves in participatory videomaking and to apply it in the field with local farmers who were implementing Tricot trials (a form of citizen science in which farmers compare and report on different crop varieties in their plots) together with One Acre Fund, a partner of the 1000 FARMS Project.