Farming by cellphone

Technologys role in agriculture cannot be ignored. Pakistan possesses both a large agrarian economy and an impressive cellular teledensity (68 percent). Pakistan Telecommunication Authority estimates that telecom sector has reached over 90 percent of the countrys districts and towns. So, there is likelihood that an increasing number of farmers are using mobile phones today, compared to, say, five years ago.
Currently, the focus of the cellular operators and the development community is on SMS-based market information services to the farmers. Services are offered in the areas of agricultural advisory, weather forecast, input costs and market prices for the produce.
Just last week, the USAID rolled out a similar service for the peach and potato farmers in Swat, in partnership with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and Telenor Pakistan. Under the programme, farmers will be sent SMS and interactive voice recordings to give them valuable information regarding crop prices, market access and disease prevention.
A similar initiative was announced by the Punjab government in December last year, when the government planned to register about a million farmers through mobile phones to educate them on modern production methods. However, the USAID project goes a step further, as it will set up organised trading centres meant to educate the farmers in Swat on their crop marketing skills.
The role of such information and advisory services is important if Pakistans agricultural heartlands are to improve their yields and contribute more to the GDP growth. However, the issue of market access will remain unresolved even in the presence of a perfect market information mechanism.
Merely knowing about their produces sale price offers little benefit when growers remain shut out from the selling markets - thanks to the layers of intermediaries and middlemen that have gotten entrenched into the agricultural economy over many decades.
Enter technology again! Global experience shows that technology is making it easier for farmers to get together to sell their produce. For instance, in Kenya, M-Farm Limited, an agribusiness company, has introduced a virtual agricultural marketplace which, besides providing market information, helps small farmers to group together through their mobile phones to offer exporters and big retailers large quantities of crops.
Internet connectivity can also be employed for market access. Since Pakistan and India share similar agricultural profiles, there is no reason why the decade-long e-Choupal initiative in India - which installed computers with internet access to offer farmers up-to-date marketing and agricultural information - cannot be replicated here. Thanks to those buzzing internet kiosks, the e-Choupal programme is reported to have increased farmers market access.
Through technology-based ideas, development organisations like USAID can engage and facilitate provincial governments and farmer organisations to solve the market access issue. However, establishment of agriculture cooperatives are also a part of the solution, the likes of which are seen in India (for sugarcane) and in South Korea (farming community organised under National Agriculture Cooperative Federation).