Maravi

Extend to rural areas, Choma DC urges mobile phone providers

Extend to rural areas, Choma DC urges mobile phone providers
By Charles Mangwato in Choma
Saturday November 03, 2007 [03:00]

ACTING Choma district commissioner Mungoni Simulilika has appealed to mobile telephone service providers to extend their services to rural areas for peasants to benefit from new farming innovations being disseminated through cellular phones.

Simulilika was speaking in Choma on Thursday when he launched the CropServe SMS facility for Southern Province which would enable farmers in rural areas to receive agricultural information by sending text messages to 47777.

He regretted that in some rural areas where farmers had access to the networks, they had to either climb trees or ant -hills to communicate.

"This is not good enough; I challenge CellZ, Celtel and MTN to reach out to the rural farmers and provide the service," he said.

Simulilika said with CropServe, the onus was now on mobile phone service providers to enhance good coverage.

He challenged farmers to utilise the SMS facility to get the information they required on farming.

And CropServe Zambia chief executive officer Lytton Zulu said the new SMS facility, which is being piloted in Southern Province, was targeting small-scale farmers.

Zulu said CropServe, which has traditionally been a provider of farming inputs to farmers, would now provide back-up services to farmers through the SMS facility.

Meanwhile, Simulilika warned farmers in Choma to be wary of fake non-governmental organisations going round villages, asking them to pay membership fees for them to access inputs.

He also cautioned the farmers against buying fake seed that had flooded the market.
He said some non-governmental organisations were masquerading as input providers in order to swindle farmers.

He said most farmers had in the past been swindled out of their hard-earned money by the fake organisations that disappeared after getting membership fees from unsuspecting farmers.

Labels: FARMERS, ICT, NGOs

posted by MrK @ 12:31 PM