FE Report

The country's annual food grain production can be increased by 20 per cent from its present level through the use of IT software in fertiliser recommendation, Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture CQK Mustaq Ahmed said recently.

"The country's present production level of 20 million tons would increase by 4 million tons to 24 million tons with the use of the newly-innovated Digital Fertiliser Recommendation Software," he said at the launching ceremony of the pilot phase of the system.

eGeneration Ltd - a leading local software company - has developed this software for Soil Resource Development Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture through which farmers can select different fertilisers and their precise dosage for different crops through a digital platform.

Using the platform, farmers can have precise fertiliser recommendations by providing five basic pieces of information - name of the crop, type of land, name of the union, upazila and district, developers of the software informed.

A central database covering the soil samples of the entire country has been developed as the feedback of the system.

"The benefit of the service is twofold - increase in yield and decrease in production cost," Chief Executive Officer of eGeneration Shameem Ahsan said on the occasion.