Sharing and expanding upon experiences, successes, issues, and challenges

Thanks to Manish for moderation of a good topic. Also thanks to Mr. Masood to open up a discussion on Kishan Call Center, which is really a need for the farmers of Bangladesh. The Department of Agricultural Extension is trying hard to setup a center like that. We shall be gratefull if you can give us some detail information in this regard, particularly institutional, structural and financial requirements to operate such center. The Agricultural Information Service (AIS), Bangladesh has planned to develop Community based Agricultural Information Service where some farmer clubs will be developed as an information centers with ICT and mass media facilities so that the farmer can communicate directly to the respective specialists or managers via email or webcamp. On the other hand, farmer can be asked by the news cluster via webcamp to describe the problems in their fields. Some progressive farmers will be trained to act as reporter on the local agriculture. I am expecting all of your comments.

8) Mr. Islam, i have been telling that this service of Kissan Call Centre is free in absolute terms all farmers have to do is to pose a question on any agriculture based problem and this is taken care by an expert sitting right on his desk and he tries to convince him in his own dialect and that too within a shortest possible time. However if you need more information on KCC i will be making it available only when i reach to my home hopefuly by the end of this month. At present i am attending a seminar in New Delhi and i pay my gratitude to you in showing interest in KCC. In fact, this is an excellent outreach service to rural settlements. Have a nice day and goodluck in the days to come. SHAH Masood India

Hi everyone, Thanks for startng a discussion on Challenges for these initiatives further to the previous posts by Mr. ISlam and Mr. Shah masoodi would like to discuss the challenges for these initiatives Though the picture of e-agriculture initiatives seem very rosy, but my field level experience with some of these projects were disappointing. the biggest challenge in the success of these initiatives to really serve the purpose is the infrastructure; In rural areas, where there is no electricity availability throghout and internet connection, how can we expect these e-agriculture initiatives to be a succes. In fact. we need power back-ups and other infrsatructural suport. Installation and Maintainence of the electronic devices is another big issue. Training of stakeholders and farmers also need to be looked into . This is one of the major challenge.As most of the rural people do not know the use of computers.they need to be trained to all this. The use of specialised and user-friendly software and other technologies is also achallenge Thanks

Hi Shapna, In Bangla, Shapna means dream. We are really dreaming. It is true that e-agriculture can be useful for the farmers when other infrastructure, facilities and skills will be in place. But question when it will happen. My believe is that we should have a small start. We may not see its success but it will take a step forward for our next generation. Our drean will be refurbished and take a actual shape that will benefit farmers. In the context of Bangladesh, we do not expect coverage of all farmers. Considering the facility, cost and skills we have planned to start with a very little, only 10 farmers clubs, which will be replicated to other clubs if it is successful. Thanks

Nice to have Mr. Islam here. Relating to your idea, I have to share that, we Win Incorporate has already started a club as you described, name e-krishok in 5 different points where we are working presently. All of these primarily running by Win with Gp CICs assistance. It is in testing phase. We are gathering members (mostly farmers) through e-krishok project from locality (initially from 5 locality). They have been offered to have necessary information related to their work and also initiating a selection process to pick-up some good farmers to give Training (agri related) from a government supported institute, almost FREE OF COST which can improve them in some way. We are also planning to do monthly or bi-monthly workshop/gathering to share views among members of e-krishok in information necessity perspective. You can find more at www.ruralinfobd.com/e-krishok/ regd [/url]

Mr Islam, thank you for your comment. I and many others it seems agree with you that there are indeed impediments to progress with the use of new technologies, not the least being infrastructure. Unfortunately, most of us are not in position to implement infrastructure projects so we have to make the best of what is available. Starting small is good, as long as we can share and build upon what we've learded - and for that we are grateful to all who are participating in this forum. I wonder if you have developed any criteria for how to measure success or the impact of projects like the AIS that you described earlier? Also are there plans to involve private sector partners directly? Thank you, Michael (FAORAP)

Dear Mr. Masood, I shall appreciate if you give me some detail information about Kissan Call Center some time latter. You can also give me address whom I can contact to get this information. I am also interested to know about Community Information Center (CIC), which is piloting in India. Do you know it? Thanks.