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Smart Farmer, Smart Future
Agricultural sector is recognized as the backbone of our economy. However, to this time the farmers, extension officials and micro/small businesses of this sector are not being able to maximize the benefits of its full potential. This is mainly due to lack of awareness to use updated information & adopt new technology (due to social behavior of farmers), lack of availability and access to relevant information & relevant services on extension and market. To address these issues, Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID) initiated ‘e-Krishok: Smart Farmer, Smart Future’ as an integrated campaign cum service delivery that targets farmers and agri-businesses (those involved in crop cultivation, poultry, livestock, fisheries farming and trading) with agricultural information and advisory services.
Half of the Bangladesh population (165 million) is women and a significant portion of them are living in rural areas where they are engaged in agricultural services.
State your goals
Empower farmers (female farmers), extension service providers and micro entrepreneurs in agriculture sector by using ICT enabled extension and market linkage services
What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?
Access to relevant and timely information & advisory services by the farmers. Specially the extension information (agronomy & weather alert) and market price (including linkage between farmers with businesses). The case is more difficult for a women famer.
The COVID 19 pandemic worsen the situation and farmers are facing challenges with limited access to extension services and failing to sell their produces at appropriate price, or even failing to sell produces.
What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?
Offer IVR based help desk service
Mobile apps with the bundle of service
Share your story (your narrative)
e-Krishok is a flagship initiative of BIID since 2009 and supporting farmers with digital innovation. The service has been recognized by the government, awarded by ITU and adopted by many development partners as well as private sector including telecom operator in Bangladesh.
A network of 500,000 farmers build e-Krishok as the most prestigious service platform.
Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.
The Smart Farmer, Smart Future initiative foresee to get young farmers on board as youth expect to get engaged in smart activities and if agriculture can be positioned as a smart profession with ICT solutions, we consider Bangladesh will be able to achieve the SDG targets by creating new job opportunity and improved livelihood.
Welcome back to the platform..
Hello Shahid, thank you for sharing the overview of your project with us!
Here are some suggestions to help you refine the submission:
1. You have stated that due to the social behavior of the farmers, they lack awareness of the updated information & are resistant (?) to adopt new technologies. Can this be backed with credible proofs or scientific evidences?
2. For clarity, could you further elaborate the problems you have listed? Explain, how the problems affect the female farmers and other target audience's lives.
3a. Please elaborate what an "IVR" is and how the IVR based help desk service
will help your target audience (particularly the female farmers). What unique features of this service would add value to addressing the problems of your target audience?
3b. Please state what mobile apps you are proposing and then explain how the mobile apps with the bundle of service help your stakeholder. What unique features of these services would add value to addressing the problems of your target audience.
3c. Also, aren't there any measures taken by the relevant stakeholders to address these issues? If yes, state why these measures aren't helping to solve the problem but yours will.
Separately, for overall understanding, you may also want to specify how your proposed solutions will address the gap between the existing problems and opportunities in this specific sector.
4. Currently, your story provides brief information about your service(s). There isn't a clear call-to-action and it lacks critical information about (i) what problem you are trying to solve and why; (ii) how the problem has affected you; (iii) what steps you took to address the problems; (iv) what worked and didn't work; (v) how you finally reached the milestone etc. You can refer to our storytelling factsheet for more details and/or watch the videos on storytelling by visiting : https://cocreate.itu.int/hubbub/communitypage/82360
Best wishes!
Users tagged:
It would be good to give a clear description of the project. How will farmers get services through IVR? What is the role of mobile apps here?
Shahid, I love the smart farmer initiative.
Provide real-time tools and data analytics for farmers to be better informed is much need.
To a little technical, Are you using a marketplace approach or Saas based model?
Thinking adoption
Also , Obviously AI, but how can Augment reality benefit your thesis?
Shahid i like smarter farmer initiative empowering farmers kindly elaborate more on your business and explain how you will use ICT to help female farmers
Your project expression is not well articulated making it difficult to understand.
However, your two key points - extension services and the huge gap between sellers or producers and buyers (market) now worsened by emergence of covid 19 pandemic need to be highlighted. Outline your value proposition, are there others fixing the frictions, what are you doing they are not. In what ways are you empowering the women? Surely, it's a good one if your project ensures empowerment parity for all genders. Think deeply your solution to be able to say it in a condensed and very clear terms. Goodluck
Hi Shahid,
The agricultural sector is the backbone of your economy and women population is about 165 million,which makes a significant portion living in rural areas, but, only a network of 500,000 farmers build your platform.How will you increase the impact of your platform,to reach the significant women population in your rural areas.
Hello great idea
Now i have a question on the bundle of apps ? What will be offered ?
Make that more clear cut on how the apps will help yhe women farmers
I do acknowledge that you offer real time data , so what will the bundle of apps offer more ? The description you can make it more clear
This is good but how are you going to make the local farmers aware of and able to use this.
Hi Shahid. This is a great initiative with a huge potential to scale but what is the revenue model that sustains the business and how do you plan to scale?
Hello Shahid,
Great consideration and concept.
However kindly elaborate how will the female farmers get training to benefit the use of the app ?Would there be a third party that will link them to the market.?
Kindly elaborate what the service desk solution will assist in.
Keep at it Shahid, Best wishes
Best Regards
Status label added: Community feedback received
The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.
Hi Shahid, Nice initiative although I have some quick questions
1. How are you going to provide bundle of services to mobile apps?
2. Most farmers don't have access to digital tools such as smartphones, how are you going to approach such issue?
3. Please clarify more on your solution.
Users tagged:
Hello, I tried to understand what IVR means to be able to under your concept but couldn't. How can your technology fare in a post-disaster environment from flooding where all internet connectivity have gone bad?
Status label added: Mentor feedback received
Hi Shahid Akbar, I am glad to note that you are very passionate about helping female farmers in Bangladesh. This is a great initiative. I would like you to kindly have a clear description of your solution and the problem you are solving. It is always good to paint a picture. Here are some areas you can make that happen;
1. Have a Clear Sense of Purpose
2. Make It Personal, Relatable, and Real
3. Balance Out the Narrative with Cold Hard Facts
4. Follow a Loose Outline with a Beginning, Middle, and End
5. Create Conflict and Suspense to Elicit an Emotional Response
6. Use Metaphors to Leave a Stronger Impression
Use these and others to help you out with your project but overall this is a brilliant idea Today, more than one billion people work in agriculture around the world. In developing countries, 43 percent of those workers are women. Clearly, female agricultural workers play an important role in feeding the world.