Vodafone India has introduced an SMS-based ‘KisaanMitr’ (farmers’ friend) service which allows farmers to access real-time customised agricultural information services.
The service offers farmers access to basic agricultural and market-related information. Further, farmers can also opt for personalised crop advisory, weather information, pesticide composition and market price services. The KisaanMitr service is available in 10 Indian languages. Farmers can sign up for the SMS-based service to get three free SMS every day.
At present, the service is free and available to farmers on trial basis. Over the next few months, Vodafone India plans to make it a subscription-based service. The operator plans to adopt a low price subscription model to ensure that the service continues to be affordable and is available to a large number of farmers. Vodafone India estimates that the service has a potential of reaching out to about 70 million farmers by 2020.
The operator has kept the service platform open and will allow ecosystem partners including non-profit organisations to leverage it for newer services and is likely to bring in aggregators for the real-time produce market information service.
Commenting on the launch of KisaanMitr service in India, Sunil Sood, managing director and chief executive officer, Vodafone India, said, ?The basis for the next green revolution in India will be a ?knowledge revolution?, and technology, particularly mobile, will play a key role in driving it. Today, 46 per cent of people in rural areas have a mobile phone and access to mobile services among those yet unconnected is growing rapidly. This offers a new channel for delivering agricultural services and an opportunity to engage rural communities in new ways. We are committed to leveraging our learning and reach to create and deliver newer business models that will benefit the entire agriculture value chain. The launch of KisaanMitr is our first step in addressing the needs of the farming community in India by providing access to timely information, markets and financial inclusion.?
