IIL Foundation collaborates with FAST to provide advise for ryots through WhatsApp

Agrochemical company Insecticides (India) Limited’s CSR wing IIL Foundation has collaborated with Hyderabad-based Foundation for Agriculture Sustainability and Transformation (FAST) to provide information and advice as per weather and infestation through WhatsApp.

The platform, launched in September last year, is up for use by farmers of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and parts of Karnataka.

Close to 400 recipients get about 1,500 customised messages on a regular basis. Agricultural officers, farm input dealers, input company’s representatives, NGOs, FPOs are associated with it.

The beneficiaries also can access YouTube Live programmes on key crops cotton, rice, chilli, and mango as well as farm visits and National Food Security Mission crop seminars of the government.

“We wish to expand such services in other vernacular languages too,” said. VK Garg, Vice President for southern region of IIL.

“The success of the programme is due to access to smartphones, Wi-Fi services and farmers’ ability to capture farm problems and sharing them,” said P Ramachandra Murthy, president & volunteer, FAST.