Halvad, 9 December, 2011

Local farmers of Halvad belt in Surendranagar district are happy these days with a new service that provides them latest information about their crop and latest market price of their produce.

Farmers like Kanjibhai Patel, Pravinsinh Rana, Mohanbhai Dalwadi or Bhanubhai Thakor receive latest prices of their agriculture produce while they are sitting in their farm or in their house.

They get all the details on their mobile phone through short messaging service(SMS), that too for free.

Thanks to Halvad Agriculture Produce Market Committee(APMC)’s new initiative, over 2000 farmers connected with this it now get latest price of their produce on their mobile phone through SMS.

Farmers of Halvad belt who mainly produce cotton, say they have been producing cotton on large scale for years. But since last one-two months they have been getting the Halvad yard’s market prices through SMS just by sitting at home and this system is very welcoming.

Last year Surendranagar area produced 1.10 lac bales of cotton and exported part of the production abroad. In the running year, the cotton seeds are planted in 5 lac hectors land in this belt.

Halvad APMC Chairman Jashubhai Patel says, “Present cotton prices have made both buyers and sellers worried, but the newly introduced SMS system has lowered down the tension, as farmers are well aware about the latest prices.”

The market also provides insurance cover, free soil test service and cleaning and grading machine at token rate to the farmers.