Islamabad: Telenor Pakistan, the country’s foremost telecom and digital services provider, entered into a partnership agreement with Winrock International, a leading provider of social, agriculture and environmental solutions. Under the agreement, Telenor Pakistan, through its flagship m-agri service ‘Khushaal Zamindar’, will collaborate with Winrock International to facilitate farmers by increasing productivity and reducing post-harvest losses through the introduction of innovative techniques and technologies in 12 districts of Sindh and Punjab provinces.
Khushaal Zamindar is a digital audio platform which provides access to real-time weather conditions, tips for effective harvesting and live audio advisory services to farmers through mobile phones. This knowledge based campaign is part of Winrock International’s Pakistan Agriculture Development (PAD) project.
PAD technical team has developed content for this campaign including information related to crop/orchard planning, site selection, nursery planning and sowing, seed price, preparing raised beds, pests & disease control, use of fertilizers, harvesting requirements, bunch management, flowering, packing, infrastructure development, financial literacy and marketing. This content will be disseminated to a targeted group of 400,000 farmers through Telenor Pakistan’s Khushaal Zamindar platform.
Commenting on the partnership, Durdana Achakzai, Chief Digital Officer, Telenor Pakistan, said “Access to accurate and latest farming information is the right of all farmers, large or small, and Telenor continues to plays it role in reducing the information gap through Khushaal Zamindar in line with its vision of empowering societies and reducing inequalities. Besides helping our farmers take educated agricultural decisions, our partnership with Winrock International will also pave the way for greater innovation in the mAgri sector that an agriculture-based economy like Pakistan’s is in dire need of.”
Speaking on the occasion, Farrukh Baig Mirza, Chief of Party, PAD project said, “It is very important to introduce modern techniques and tools to small scale farmers for the agricultural development in Pakistan and our partnership with Telenor Pakistan is a step towards this direction. Due to Telenor Pakistan’s reach in these communities along with its experience in digital services, especially Khushaal Zamindar, we believe that we shall able to bring the benefits of this service to 400,000 farmers directly and indirectly over the next two years”
The service will be executed in regional languages for the farmers in Sindh and Punjab regions including Thatta, Mirpur Khas, Hyderabad/Matiari, Umerkot, Tando Allahyar and Khairpur in Sindh; Shiekhupura, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Khanewal, Bahawalpur and Lodhran in Punjab.
