This fall, Banfield partnered with the Aid4Agriculture initiative on a six-week integrated media campaign to put women and agriculture at the front of the minds of our MPs.
A coalition of more than 35 NGOs, including the Canadian Food Grains Bank, Aid4Agriculture initiative is recommending that Canada make a signature investment of $2.5 billion over five years to support sustainable agriculture and climate change adaptation for small-scale farmers, especially women. This investment would also reduce long-term reliance on humanitarian aid, helping to build a more peaceful, prosperous and secure world for us all.
Needless to say that in this season of giving, Aid4Agriculture is the kind of initiative that our team is very proud to be associated with and to share with the world.
The importance of empowering women farmers
This investment would empower women farmers as change-makers, who transform their communities and countries. In rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa, women are in charge of cooking and food preparation, along with most of the farming work, however they have little access to land, water and technology.
At the heart of the coalition is small-scale farming. However, agricultural developments in developing nations have the power to positively impact a number of other areas through the economic growth that it stimulates, including improving nutrition, creating opportunities for rural youth, and reducing poverty.
Spreading awareness both online and off
Starting this project, it was understood that reaching our primary target audience of MPs would be a challenge since they, along with their staffers, receive an overwhelming number of communications and requests.
In our experience, persistence, and finding ways to repeat the message and the ask through different channels, is often the best way to navigate a landscape as our complex political system.
This led to our recommendation to build an integrated campaign across multiples platforms, including a landing page, electronic and print direct mails, print ads, targeted social advertising, organic social media, and a panel discussion in collaboration with iPolitics.
At the heart of it all was our campaign video, which borrowed the codes of documentary journalism and the energy and efficient of business communications to cut through the clutter surrounding the MPs and other key stakeholders we were trying to reach.
The seed of change has been planted
Now that the campaign is over — and that the seed for global change has been planted — we look forward to see the initiative unfold over the next few months and years.
We want to thank everyone at the Aid4Agriculture for entrusting us with so such an important and meaningful cause.
To learn more and see how you can get involved, visit: http://aid4ag.ca/