Early members of the Smart Farmer Association.
On June 14th our Director of India operations, Prashanth Venkataramana, and the undergraduate Intern, Nick Stewart, kicked off a new Essmart initiative in style when they were quickly ushered inside the NABARD tower in Bangalore for a private meeting with the Chief General Manager.
Spearheaded by Prashanth, the meeting was arranged to discuss his brainchild, the Smart Farmer Association, and our team had come to seek advice on the proposed activities of the Association from the premier agricultural and rural development bank in India, NABARD.
The Smart Farmer Association (SFA) was sponsored by Essmart and launched this summer to provide a range of services to farmers and customers across Tamil Nadu. The goal of the organization is to provide helpful content to farmers about new agricultural practices and technologies that improve farm productivity and quality of life. SFA was also formed to help farmers across the state connect with each other and share farming strategies.
Finally, the association will serve farmers and their families by hosting social events and technology training sessions to teach people in rural areas about the benefits of smart phone and Internet technologies.
Nick Stewart with a farming family.
Motivated by the positive encouragement and feedback the team received in early meetings with NABARD and others, recruitment for the SFA has accelerated in the past few weeks. We are thrilled to announce that the group has over 200 members participating in its Facebook and WhatsApp groups online, and an additional 135 members offline using our cellphone content service.
We are currently scheduling more events throughout Tamil Nadu later this year! Feel free to check out the SFA Facebook page for more information: https://www.facebook.com/smartfarmerassociation/
Nick, an Essmart team member, and farmers.