Grameen Intel Social Business Ltd

Press Release: Published in the Daily Star on 11 April 2014; BSS Online on 10 April, Firstnews Magazine- April 3rd Week Issue
H.E. Dan W. Mozena, US Ambassador to Bangladesh has visited (on 9 April) the Project Harvest initiative of World’s first IT social business company Grameen Intel Social Business Ltd.

US Ambassador was also accompanied by USAID/Bangladesh Mission Director, Ms. Janina Jaruzelski and other officials of US Embassy. Pavel Hoq -Chief Operating Officer of Grameen Intel, MD. Ehsanul Bari - Managing Director of Grameen Krishi Foundation, were also present  at the event along with other officials.

During the visit Ambassador Mozena visited the farmers’ fields to know about the harvest of potato of this season being promoted through project harvest of Grameen Intel. This season 18 farmers of Mirbag, Rangpur took part in project harvest initiative and they have managed substantially reduce fertilizer use; around 2/3 cost of fertilizer was reduced under the project recommendation.

Grameen Intel has implement project harvest initiative in Mirbag and Mithapukur zones in Rangpur with Grameen Krishi Foundation in Rabi 2013-2014 season.

US Ambassador Dan W. Mozena called upon the farmers for adopting the latest technologies and scientific methods in cultivating crops to get better production and profit. He said this while visiting computerized soil test method used at Project Harvest to address fertilizer recommendation to the farmers at Mirbag in Kawnia upazila yesterday using mrittikā software introduced by Grameen Intel Social Business Ltd.

After observing the computerized Project Harvest soil test method on the spot, Mozena suggested the farmers to adopt the latest technologies and methods introduced by Grameen Intel for increasing crop production to ensure food security through conducting farm activities smoothly using the recommended optimum fertilizers.

Pavel Hoq, Chief Operating Officer of Grameen Intel said, “Farmers seem to be clearly seeing the benefit of using such a technology tool as not only does it help to achieve better yield, it also allows farmers to save on fertilizer as it often recommends less fertilizers and focuses more on accurate combination and dosage. This in turn helps prevent or slows soil depletion.”

Ambassador Mozena interacted with potato farmers and learnt how farming software application of Grameen Intel has helped them apply optimum fertilizes dosages.

A software called mrittikā, developed by Grameen Intel was used for this purpose. It is a logic driven software that can be customized to provide the appropriate fertilizer recommendation for any region, and any crop. The application can be installed on any low cost computer or a handheld device. It prepares a unique fertilizer prescription for each combination of crop and region, based on a real-time analysis of the nutrients in the soil.

Project Harvest has so far worked with rice, jute, potato, wheat, mustard, mung bean, green chili, peanuts and ladyfingers and the results so far have been quite encouraging. So far Project Harvest has been initiated in Kushtia, Rangpur and Patuakhali among 274 farmers.

Photo Caption: US Ambassador Dan W. Mozena, USAID/Bangladesh Mission Director, Ms. Janina Jaruzelski, Pavel Hoq -Chief Operating Officer of Grameen Intel are seen in the picture using mrittikā software for optimum fertilizer recommendations.