Handygo Technologies mKisan to assist Indian farmers

Mobile VAS provider Handygo Technologies has received a grant from the GSMA Mobile for Development Foundation to launch an agricultural mVAS to benefit approximately 1 million small farmers in India over the next two years.

The mobile VAS provider received the grant from the mFarmer Initiative, a partnership between the GSMA, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID.

Handygo in a communication on Wednesday said it has termed this rural mVAS initiative as mKisan. The project aims to empower small holder farmers by providing information and advisory on agriculture and livestock to help them improve their yield and income.

mKisan includes information and advice on a range of topics including crops and livestock, agricultural bulletins comprising agro met advisory, information on market prices, pest and disease alerts and a dedicated farmer helpline.

In addition to this, the mKisan project also aims to test video-based advisory and knowledge sharing tools amongst farmers and will provide specific services for women farmers.

Praveen Rajpal, CEO, handygo Technologies, said: “To further ensure that we continue delivering quality content to the farmers, we are working with the best agencies in the field of agriculture and livestock, as well as Government institutions which will help and ensure that the content and information that we pass on to farmers is scientific, accurate and based on seasonality.’’

Handygo has partnered with CABI, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and Digital Green for this project.

CABI will support on actionable agriculture content and subject matter specialists, ILRI for livestock content and Digital Green for video content on agriculture and livestock.

Handygo will promote mKisan in six major states of the country in their regional languages.

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