Entrepreneurs in the field of agriculture bring the digital age to farmers in Pakistan to help them develop better plans to produce and distribute crops.
The farmer, Amer Hayat Handara, a member of the local council responsible for one of these projects, told Agence France Presse in the village of Chuck 26 located in the Agricultural Punjab region..
Even making mobile calls may be difficult in many parts of Pakistan, but since October, farmers in Chak 26 were granted free of charge to the Internet, which is a revolution in their way of working.
The agricultural sector is the backbone of the Pakistan economy.It represents about 20 percent of GDP and works about forty percent of the workforce..
Pakistan is the fifth largest sugar producer in the world and the seventh largest wheat producer and the tenth largest rice product, but it depends heavily on the human labor and is still left behind from other major agricultural countries in the mechanization.
Cows and donkeys are rest near a muddy road that leads to a narration in Chuck 26, connected to an internet network, a neighboring town thanks to a small satellite dish.This is "Digital Dera", or the location of the meeting, and six local farmers came to see computers and tablets that provide accurate expectations for weather in addition to market prices and agricultural advice.
"I have not seen a tablet before," said Mounir Ahmed, 45, who sows corn, potatoes and wheat..
"In the past, we were based on the experiences of our ancestors or our experiences, but that was not very accurate.".And collective access to the internet is not the only innovation of Bhandara.A short car, a modern electronic replacement system was connected to an old water pump on the wall of a hut..
He only needs a tablet to control the irrigation of a hundred hectares that he cultivates, although he still has fluctuations in the intermittent power supply in Pakistan.
And this year, Handara hopes that others will use this technology, which he says will reduce water and voltage consumption. He explained to Agence France -Presse...The countryside is the only way to prosper..On the other end of the supply chain, in Lahore, about 150 km north, dozens of men carry fruits and vegetables on cargo bicycles in a warehouse belonging.
Just four months after its launch, the company reached about one hundred tons of products per day to dealers in Lahore and Crachi who provide their orders through a phone application.
In the company’s office, some employees deal with orders, but currently, purchases are still taking place over the phone as it is still part of the application for farmers under development..
Also, the startup company deals with a "centuries -old" system that the stakeholders are frequently changing, as the co -founder Abrar Bajwa explained..
Foreign investments in the emerging Pakistani companies exceeded 310 million dollars last year, five times the level of 2020 and more than the previous six years combined, according to several reports.
Bajua, a former director of "Karim", an application for local transport, which was acquired by "Uber" in 2020, explained by many markets that capital owners seek, such as India or Indonesia, saturated ".
Now, Pakistan, the fifth country in the world in terms of population, attracts attention, and agriculture is a "completely exploited from a technological point of view", according to Bajwa..