11 Oct 2015

 A new mobile application m-Agric, designed for farmers in under served communities has reached over 10 000 registered users at the end of September.

A press release from Orange Botswana states that the agricultural mobile application which is supported by Orange Botswana registers about 260 new users on a daily basis.

It says the application is the idea of a young entrepreneur, Mr Martin Setimela, under his company Brastorne Group.

The release states that the system was primarily developed to offer affordable connectivity for all local farmers, including the most under served in remote villages by creating a comprehensive mobile ecosystem for the agricultural community.

It says through the application, farmers can enjoy the convenience of easily marketing their products, learning farming tips from the Ministry of Agriculture and accessing financial services through the use of basic mobile phones.

Furthermore, the release states that the application is a trading platform that also comes with news and announcement sections on prices, subsidies, events and weather forecasts.

The m-Agri mobile application currently has diverse groups of farmers registered with different products such as beef cattle, maize, goats, potatoes, fruits and vegetables, sheep, dairy cattle, pigs and sorghum.

Service providers, merchants and farmers can create their own mobile stores and allow farmers to search for and compare prices on hundreds of products and services.

The release further states that successful projects in agriculture do not only have an advantage in diversification, but is also labour intensive and closer to the majority of the poor. Success also means job creation, poverty eradication and prosperity  for all.

Orange spokesperson, Ms Boga Chilinde-Masebu says Orange offers connectivity to the application by providing a short code dedicated to the service and the Orange technical platform to host their on-line services.

Ms Masebu further said the technical connection between m-Agri and Orange allows the system to send bulk sms messages to clients, which are a critical element of this project.

The application is accessible through the short code *118#, and is currently only available to Orange customers. Ends