Agri-information to farmers through SMS

In Nepal, most of the farmers are located in semi-urban and remote areas. In most of the areas agriculture extension workers cannot reach frequently to address their day to day agriculture related problems. This directly affects farmer’s production leading to affect whole agricultural production of the country. In this situation, right information to right person in right time may help a lot to reduce the degree of affect. Realizing this, CEAPRED has initiated to disseminate agriculture related information to its farmers through SMS.

Use of mobile is being very popular these days from urban areas to remote areas. It is popular among youths as well as among old aged. CEAPRED has taken the popularity of mobile as its opportunity to flow agriculture related information to the farmers. As a pilot program, this has been initiated through two ongoing projects which CEAPRED is implementing. In Kavre, the selected farmers are getting information through Himalayan Climate Change Adaptation Programme (HICAP)-Climate Smart Village (CSV) and in Sindhuli through UNNATI project. Those selected farmers get SMS related to weather forecast and wholesale market price of related markets three times a week while agriculture technology related information once a week. The technical information is provided on the basis of cropping calendar and weather forecast. This mobile based advisory service has helped farmers to take right decision at right time to combat with probable loss.