Smart Farmer, Smart Future

“Smart Farmer, Smart Future” is a campaign to promote ICT enabled(mobile and internet) services in agricultural sector. The wide spread use of mobile phones, availability of shared access points and the constantly growing pace of high speed internet, provides a huge opportunity to provide the much required services and smart solutions for empowering our farmers and relevant stakeholders. “Smart Farmer, Smart Future” targets the young farmers for demonstrating value proposition (livelihood improvement) through positioning agriculture as a distinct profession highlighting the benefits of ICT enabled (Mobile & Internet) agricultural extension service.

This campaign is designed & organized by BIID and supported by Grameenphone and Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) to promote ICT enabled e-Krishok services through awareness building, training & idea generation in the field of agriculture.

BIID has been working in the field of ICT4D since 2008 . BIID launched the e-Krishok campaign in 2008 in 10 locations and transformed it into a service proposition in 2010. Later it was spread in 350 Upazilla’s in collaboration with Grameenphone, Katalyst and ACI Limited. In 2012, BIID signed MoU with the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) to foster the effort to integrate ICT enabled services in extension service more efficiently. “Smart Farmer, Smart Future” is another initiative of BIID as its continuous effort to promote e-Krishok services, mainly 16250, the short code based solution. Farmers and extension information seekers can avail voice and text based solution via 16250. Through this Campaign 100000 audiences have been reached in 100 different locations. Over 15000 participants directly engaged with the Campaign and generated around 700 ideas. The best ideas will be selected and awarded attractive prizes. The winners will also be recognized through exchange visits and documentary. “Smart Farmer, Smart Future” will continue as a service through e-Krishok and will be expanded through “Smart Village” in the next phase.

For more information, please visit www.ekrishok.com