LAHORE: Federal Minister of State for IT and Telecommunications Shaza Fatima Khawaja said on Saturday that agri-tech has an essential role in enhancing Pakistan’s agricultural productivity, promoting the economic well-being of farmers, and ensuring the country’s food security.
The government’s top priorities are digitalization and agriculture. It is devising strategic initiatives and policy frameworks to facilitate all stakeholders, especially farmers, ‘ benefit from emerging technological solutions.
The Minister spoke in a meeting at the launch of Syngenta Pakistan, a leading agriculture innovation and technology company’s ‘Cropwise Grower’ mobile application.
Cropwise Grower app is a free-of-cost, highly innovative digital solution to engage and advise Pakistani farmers to enhance their farm productivity, offering multiple features, including instant detection and diagnosis of crop diseases, pests and other threats to the crops.
Covering over three million acres of farmland, the app’s ‘scan, detect and diagnose’ feature called Crop Doctor is powered by the most advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) based mechanism, which provides a one-stop solution to farmers to identify crop problems and address these problems efficiently. ‘Cropwise Grower’ offers several other valuable facilities such as an e-commerce module for online ordering of products, ‘Naya Savera’ franchise locations and a deeper understanding of spraying windows based on localized weather information and evolving environment.
Besides recommending products suitable for various crop-growth stages, it provides crop-management information and tutorials on the timely identification of pests and diseases.
The Minister appreciated the Syngenta role in providing such an app to the growers. Country General Manager Syngenta Pakistan Zeeshan Hasib Baig stated: “Syngenta Pakistan’s core strength lies in its close relationship with the growers.
To further strengthen this connection with our growers, we are delighted to share the Cropwise Grower app which brings smart solutions closer to farmers and enables them to be more self-sufficient.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024