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e-Krishok comes to Rustam’s Aid
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Md. Rustam Sheik is a farmer from the village of Pata Baria in the sub-district of Morelganj in Bagherhat district. He has been farming for most of his 56 years; he claims that he does not know any other trade other than farming. He owns about 2 bighas of land, on which he farms rice, aubergines, guava, spinach, bottle gourd, pepper and a few other vegetables; he farms rice all year long and the vegetables according to the season. He has two sons who help him with the farming work
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Even though Rustam is a very experience farmer, he still faces some problems to which he does not have the answers and for which he cannot go to other experienced farmers because they, like him, do not have the solutions.
Recently he faced such a situation with his aubergine crop. Here is what happened. The root of the aubergine plants would start to rot, and this would cause the plant to dry up and then to finally die. Rustam went to the local Agricultural Office to try and get a solution there, but he was not able to get anything that was reliable. Even when he was able to get hold of the Sub-Assistant Agricultural Officer (SAAO), but the SAAO was not able to help him.
It was at this time that Rustam learnt about e-Krishok through the Brand Promoter of the campaign Hasib. From Hasib, Rustam heard that he could go to the local Community Information Center (CIC) with his farming problems and he would be able to get a solution within one day. “Within one day!” thought Rustam. He had to try it out. So he went to the CIC and described his problem to Hasib.
Hasib noted down the details of the problem and then asked Rustam to return the very next day. Hasib found the solution to Rustam’s problem on e-Krishok’s online database, www.ruralinfobd.com. When Rustam returned the next day for the solution, Hasib was able to provide it to him. Hasib informed Rustam that he needed to use a medicine on his aubergine plants, which would take care of the problem for him. Rustam did as he was instructed to do on two of his aubergine fields. On one of the fields, he did not get much of a benefit because the disease was already in an advanced stage; however on the other field where the disease was not in such an advanced stage, he was able to save the vast majority of his aubergine crop. From this aubergine field, Rustam estimates that he will be able to earn Tk. 40,000. He is very satisfied that he was able to save so much of his crop, and that he will be able to earn so much extra income.
He says that e-Krishok is like a heaven sent gift to farmers like him. He feels that in the future he will be able to rely on e-Krishok for any sort of agricultural problem that he may face. And this will help him to plan for the future in a better frame of mind.
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