Service aims to transform agriculture sector

FRESH Produce Advisory Resources Market Information Services (Farmis) is a digital information service developed by FPDA’s research, policy, communication and advisory division to make farming easier for rural Papua New Guineans.
General manager and chief executive officer Mark Worinu said Farmis was conceptualised in line with the government’s e-Agriculture Strategy (2017-2023) to transform the agriculture sector by innovative information and communication technologies.
He said FPDA would launch the Farmis platform – a one-stop information portal – with end-to-end solutions for farmers growing fresh produce.
“Farmis is built on an earlier version of a mobile-enabled agricultural information platform, mobile market information service (Momis) launched in 2009, which has provided market information on fresh produce to farmers in the value chain system,” Worinu said.
“In addition to accurate and timely market information, Farmis will also offer weather and crop advisory services that can be tailored to a farmer’s needs, considerably reducing the cost of extension services.”
Worinu said the current ratio of agriculture extension officers to farmers was one officer to 20,000 farmers and given PNG’s challenging geographical terrain it was quite difficult for extension service providers to reach all farming communities.
“Farmis intends to bridge that gap using digital services on mobile phones and that applies to farmers of all types of crops,” he said.