Telenor Pakistan is one of the largest telecommunications service providers in Pakistan. It has a subscriber base of more than 44 million and a 28 per cent market share of the Pakistan’s telecommunication market.
Telenor’s Khushaal Zamindar (Prosperous Farmer) 7272 service is a weather and crop advisory service launched first in Punjab and then later in Gilgit Baltistan and Chitral, through Market Development Facility’s support. The service provides relevant, actionable and timely information to the farmers in their local language through outbound calls and text messages.
Market Constraints
Farmers in rural areas have limited access to information on crop cultivation and animal husbandry which affects their productivity and investment. Due to the lack of information, farmers use poor quality inputs, apply inadequate fertilisers inconsistently and struggle to control crop diseases and pests. Variation in weather and absence of timely information causes problems during sowing, harvesting and post harvesting periods. Weather in Gilgit and Chitral varies from valley to valley and results in crop losses.
Intervention
MDF supported Telenor to provide famers in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and Chitral access to actionable, timely and relevant crop information on their mobile phones. This helps them to reach higher yields and reduce post-harvest losses. Having the right information is critical to supporting the growing, processing and post-harvesting processes, to properly manage fruit and vegetable cultivation.
MDF enabled Telenor to build an understanding of regional agricultural constraints and expanded their service into new regions through the crop advisory and weather alerts service. MDF helped them with research on agriculture constraints and sourcing weather content for advisory service. It connected them with relevant stakeholders in the region and supported in developing and stylising content according to the regional social norms.
Click on the link below to download the Partner fact sheet.