27 September, Thimphu: Sixteen participants including youths from urban farming program and teachers from the School Agriculture Program attended an awareness training on e-RNR Crop Advisory at Serbithang.
The crop advisory is a mobile app on farming, the first of its kind introduced by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests in 2020. It is targeted for youths to help them take up farming for their livelihoods. It can be also used by urban dwellers to start kitchen gardens and other interested individuals.
It was developed considering the crucial role that the right ICT solutions plays in delivering timely and accurate information to the farming communities. It is a platform with easy access to a repository of instructions on growing various crops through textual, picture and video contents. It also shares useful farming tips, highlights the crop calendar and links to weather forecasts and agricultural related news as well.
Participants learnt to use the mobile app including the installation, registration, downloads and how to access the app features. They expressed that the app will be useful for them as it takes the farming information to their door step. They will further share the knowledge to their team members, students and friends.
“With the app in place, we need not necessarily visit the agriculture office for information. Most of the time, we are not sure where to contact for farming related information as such this app comes handy saving our time as well, ” shared Dechen Wangmo from urban farming program.
The app is available on Google play store for download and works on Android phones for now.
Similar training will also be organised for youths in Wangdue and Punakha on September 30. The training is being funded by EU-TACS and organised by the Ministry’s ICTD jointly with the Department of Agriculture.
How to install the app?
- Online at https://youtu.be/16VQAUcjfVw
- For registration, please use your mobile number followed by 2 zeros (E.g: 176*****00).
-ICTD
