Senior Staff Reporter,Rangpur :
The Digital technologies have pervaded all aspects of agricultural management including cultivation, planting, nursing, harvesting, threshing, marketing etc. HarvestPlus Bangladesh has been working on ensuring nutrition and food security to eradicate hidden hunger.
In continuation of digitization in agriculture, the organization has recently implemented 10 batches of farmers training on “Use of Digital Technology in Zinc Rice Production and Commercialization” in Lalmonirhat from 26th July to 7th August 2022.
From this training programme, 300 zinc rice producers were trained on the techniques of using digital technologies in zinc rice production, marketing and how to become profitable from commercial cultivation of zinc rice. This training is an activity of CBC Program which is co-led by HarvestPlus and GAIN.
The training program was inaugurated by Dr. Md. Khairul Bashar, Country Manager, HarvestPlus Bangladesh and supervised by Syed Md. Abu Hanifa, Project Coordinator, CBC Program-HarvestPlus Bangladesh. The trainings were conducted by Md. Ruhul Quddus, Project Officer of HarvestPlus-CBC Program and coordinated by Md. Mosarof Hossain, Coordinator of NAZIR.
Through this training, the participants were sensitized about the necessity of zinc, importance of zinc rice to combat zinc deficiency, ways of digital agriculture management, techniques of using digital agricultural technology, advantages, and future prospects of using digital technology in zinc rice marketing.
Md. Mofizul Islam, a successful zinc rice producer of Kaliganj said, “Earlier the rice harvesting season, I had to sell rice to the local faria at a lower price, so I did not get desired profit. But this year, CBC program added me in the online platform, so I got opportunity to sell my produced zinc rice profitably to miller. Also, I learned a lot from this training regarding use of digital technology for zinc rice business. 300 farmers like me in my district got this opportunity and hope so all the farmers of Bangladesh will be in the digital platform in recent future. Thanks to HarvestPlus CBC program for this excellent initiative”.
