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e-Krishok campaign—Promoting ICT Usage in Rural Bangladesh: The Case of Iqram Hossain
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Iqram Hossain is quite well known in the Sharankhola area. Besides being a farmer for many years, Iqram has been running a successful mobile service store for the past five years; this mobile store earns Iqram about TK. 6000 a month. When asked how and why he became a farmer, Iqram said that his family has been farming for a number of generations, so it was quite natural for him to go into farming. His main crops are rice and potatoes.
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As a farmer, Iqram regularly faces agricultural problems. Sometimes it is pests that attack his crops and at other times disease strikes and the crops die. This time around Iqrams rice fields were attacked by insects called Cutworm. These insects attack the stem of the rice paddy and as a result the paddy does not produce rice. If Iqram did not do anything about the insects, then the insects would ruin his entire rice field causing him serious economic hardship. When Iqram faced such problems before, he would go to the pesticide and insecticide dealers for the solutions. This time around, Iqram chose not to go to such dealers. He had heard the he could get agricultural solutions from the local Community Information Center (CIC) through the e-Krishok Campaign; and so he chose to go to the CIC for an agro-solution.
By applying the solution from the CIC, Iqram estimates that he has been able to save nearly 90% of his rice crop this season. He is very satisfied that he can now go to a place and obtain reliable solutions while paying a reasonable sum of money.
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