Digital Bangladesh: Farmers wise up online

A big chunk on the map of Bangladesh happens to comprise of rural areas. Thus, the dream of a 'Digital Bangladesh' can never be achieved by leaving behind the interests of our rural co-habitants. Everyone has the right to information and development. But Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID) took the provision of this right one step further by providing them with a very modern solution to the problems of our rural farmers by launching their e-krishok campaign. The campaign provides farmers with information and advisory services, so that the farmers can increase their income as well as generate new sources of income.

Bangladeshi farmers have to go through numerous hardships. Natural calamities cannot be avoided. However, if the farmer knew when to expect one and thereby take appropriate preventive measures, maybe  some of his crops could be saved. Besides natural calamities, he is always running the risk of crop infestations and rainfall that is either too low or too high, thereby producing poor yields. Due to poor education, many farmers may be following the practices of his fore-fathers blindly, without looking for better agricultural methods or practices.

Without proper information, a farmer whose crops have been infested by pests, for example, would think that this is the end and that his crops are only destined to die. This would mean a bad income that year, and no food for his family.

So what if this farmer was armed with easy access to the correct information at the correct time? This could lighten his load by ridding him of numerous uncertainties during his agricultural process and thereby raise his family's living standards. A better living standard for the farmers would mean a more developed Bangladesh. This is the prime aim of the e-Krishok campaign.

Through e-Krishok, farmers can get information and advice not just on agricultural issues, but also on other issues relevant to the Bangladeshi farmer, like animal husbandry, fisheries, rural cottage industry and handicrafts.

BIID , with support from UNDP, has teamed up with Grameenphone by setting up Community Information Centres all over the country. In the pilot phase, 10 Centres had been opened in various locations, but the aim is to scale this up to more than 1000 locations in the country.

So how does this e-krishok campaign work? When a farmer faces a problem or needs information relating to an agricultural or animal husbandry issue, he only has to visit his nearest community information center and using the e-Krishok agricultural services, the farmer can get reliable and correct information as to what he should do. The farmer has to inform the entrepreneur of the CIC the nature of his problem or the kind of information he is looking for. The entrepreneur then searches for the solution on http://www.ruralinfobd.com or if the solution is not available there, he e-mails the information of the problem to the agricultural expert of e-Krishok. The agricultural expert will get back to him with a solution via an e-mail. This way, the farmer can get a solution to his problem within a 24 hour time span.

BIID is also engaged in the process to build the capacity of the CIC entrepreneurs to provide better services and facilities to the customers thereby adding value to the user experience of the customers. The District Commissioner Offices are leading the initiative of training on using the Computer, Internet and all other ICTs with the support of a 150 trainers pool. More and more people are getting trained on how they will run their telecentre and what will be their role. This again would help in raising employment opportunities in the rural areas.

The achievements of this campaign are after setting up more than 100 information centres were as follows:

Around 1400 farmers could be reached either directly or indirectly through the campaign. They now have around 1200 registered members. A total of around 6000 queries of framers have been handled by the CICs and around 1800 farmers have reported to have benefited from applying the information or advice of the CICs.

Initially, it is but natural for the farmers to be cautious and mistrustful of anything new, especially something that they do not understand. However, the e-Krishok campaign has shown the farmers that they can rely on ICT to improve their livelihoods through better techniques and practices.

Here's to a greener 'Digital Bangladesh'.

Shariful Alam