Home ›› 01 May 2023 ›› Nation
The level of confidence of grassroots farmers is being strengthened to a greater extent in the field of producing additional crops besides protecting soil health and curtailing production cost after the best uses of Digital technologies in northern region of the country.
Different types of demand-driven services, including knowledge based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), devices and apps, are being reached to the farmers’ doorsteps instantly.
Farmers are seen producing additional crops together with changing their fortunes through deriving total benefits of those effectively.
Monirul Islam, 40, has become an icon in terms of attaining capacity for balanced fertilization in farming fields through using ‘Khamari App’ that discourages farmers from indiscriminate fertilization, a common concern.
In addition to protecting soil health, judicious fertilization is enhancing cropping yield and meeting protein demands. It’s also saving Taka 50,000 in fertilizer costs every season.
“I have 16-bigha farming fields of paddy, wheat, watermelon, maize and mustard seed round the year,” he said, adding that he’s reaping additional yield worth around Taka 60,000 in every season after using the digital devices.
Islam said Khamari mobile App is contributing a lot towards boosting crop yield as it’s very much effective in terms of digitizing the data and findings related to farming.
“The Khamari App is time-fitting and need-oriented to the farmers and other beneficiaries,” he added.
Anisuzzaman Dollar, 48, another farmer of Dewpara village, has become habituated in crop farming after taking necessary information and suggestions related to weather, pest management, irrigation and fertilization from the Farmers Information and Advice Center (FIAC) at Union Parishad (UP).
As a member of the Dewpara FIAC Facebook messenger group, he receives all sorts of necessary and emergency information related to his farming management either from his house or farming field instantly.
Shafiqul Islam, 45, a farmer of Nazirpur village, has transformed himself into a digital agriculture entrepreneur as he has a reaper, binder, thrasher, power thresher, wider, hand wider, machine for spraying fertilizer, bed planter, seed sowing tray and strip tillage for producing paddy seedlings on the tray.
He has a Facebook messenger group with around 250 farmers and delivers services to them as per their demands.
Many other farmers have changed their fortunes after the best uses of modern ICT as well as the benefits of digital Bangladesh in the region including its vast Barind tract.
With this breakthrough, the number of entrepreneurs in the agriculture sector is seen increasing gradually bringing a new dimension to the region’s agro-based economy.
Two young friends, Sarwar Rashid and Nurullah Sadekin Sourav, have invested in high-value fruits and crops farming after taking a lease of12 bighas of land and launching digital farming in Iswaripur area under Godagari upazila in late 2020.
“We’ve added modern mechanization and digitalization to agriculture for getting more outputs and profits after utilizing our IT knowledge and experiences,” said Sarwar Rashid while illustrating their business strategy.
He said they are taking suggestions and guidelines from local agriculture officers on how to make farming more profitable.
