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13 Jul, 2013

India To Launch SMS Portal For Poor Farmers

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Ministry of Agriculture, 11-July, 2013 — An SMS portal for farmers, the Kisaan SMS Portal, will be launched by the President Mr Pranab Mukherjee on 16th July, 2013. The Kisaan Portal aims at reaching information, advisories and services through SMS to more than 12 crore (1.2 billion) farmers across the country.

Being an instant and non-intrusive medium of communication, the SMS advisories and alerts will enable farmers to take informed decisions relating to different aspects of farming including crop production and marketing, animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries. They can also opt to receive SMS messages customized to their specific requirements.

Weather forecast and alerts will enable farmers in planning, farming operations effectively and taking the best suited action to deal with adverse weather conditions.

Advisories on disease/pest outbreak will help the farmers to take immediate actions to secure their crops and animals. Advisories on best practices, such as selection of better suited crop variety/ animal breed, will lead to better farm productivity and higher income to the farmers.

Timely market information provided through SMS will give the farmer better bargaining power and he will be in a position to take better decisions about sale of his produce.

SMS advisories will also include soil test results, selection of fertilizer and its dosage, and also information on various programmes so that farmers can make the best use of assistance and know-how being made available by the Government.

Farmers will need to register for this service by calling Kisaan Call Centre on the toll free number 1800-180-1551 or through the web portal.

Officers of various departments, experts and scientists in research institution and in the field will use this portal for disseminating information, giving topical and seasonal advisories and providing services through SMSs to farmers in their local languages. Officers can send SMS to farmers belonging to the entire area of their jurisdiction or a part of it. Grouping of farmers based on their location and their preferred crop/activity will help sending relevant messages to the farmers.