Kisan Sanchar

Kisan Sanchar is a not for profit organization incorporated u/s 25 of Indian Companies Act 1956 on 15 March 2012. Since its inception, Kisan Sanchar has interacted with 1.1 million farmers through its web portal www.kisansanchar.com in 18 vernacular languages and provided them with authentic and actionable information furnished by multiple Government Institutions including Indian Meteorological Department, State Department of Agriculture etc.

Kisan Sanchar has collaborated with NABARD Haryana Regional Office and developed five Farmer Producer Companies in Yamunanagar, Ambala, Karnal, Panipat, and Sonipat. The NGO has also institutionalized a Kisan Academy in Raipur Rani, Panchkula for training of farmers and directors associated with Farmer Producer Companies

Summary of Weather related Activities for Wingify Foundation

The prime objective of Kisan Sanchar is to provide the Indian farmers with the latest weather-related information on a regular basis. This information particularly includes news about expected wind speed and rainfall, which helps the farmers perform their farming activities, such as irrigation, fertilizer application, pesticide use etc., accordingly. For instance, if farmers decide to irrigate their farms without knowing about the forecasted rainfall, not only will their farms flood due to additional water pour, but consequently their crops may also get damaged. Similarly, if it rains after a farmer has sprayed pesticides across their agricultural land, the effect of the chemical will not sustain and the farmer will lose input as well as laborers' cost.

Considering such scenarios, Wingify Foundation has initiated the “Green Alert” mobile message service across various parts of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh. The alert service sends weather reports on a regular basis to nearly 7149 farmers across these regions and helps them make informed decisions.

• Voice weather report - Every Tuesday
• Text weather report - Every Friday

Impact of The CSR Project

For evaluation and analysis, the impact of messages delivered through mobile phone data available via the telecom systems and survey of 464 farmers was used. Based on the auto-generate data from the telecom systems and survey, the following conclusions were drawn:

• Voice and text messages providing latest weather information immensely helped the farmers to effectively and efficiently plan and execute different farming operations, including sowing, irrigation, fertilizer application, earthing, and harvesting, and reap high benefits.
• Majority of farmers opined that a forecast about rains effectively helped them to save on their irrigation efforts, especially in the case of sugarcane. Forecast information further enables them to produce healthy crops and earn high profits on sale in the market.
• Saving on irrigation further resulted in the farmers saving approximately three-acre inch of water (1.02 Lakh Litre or 1.51 cusec/day). This, in turn, helped preserve the groundwater and even replenish it through natural means.
• Majority of participating farmers desired to get additional information about crop production and related farming techniques.
• Based on the absorption of voice messages it was observed that a majority of respondents sincerely adhered to the information passed on to them through voice and text messages and conducted activities accordingly.
• Looking at the adherence amid the farmers, Wingify Foundation deduced that the service must be extended to other growing agricultural areas as well to help many other farmers also benefit from this developed technology.

Mobile penetration is rapidly increasing in the rural areas, and the usefulness of smartphones is also recognized. Looking at the changing scenarios and with an aim to bring every farmer on the same page, especially in terms of adherence to new agriculture techniques, Wingify Foundation is working on developing and delivering informative training videos to help farmers easily learn and enhance their agricultural skills.