MTN Ghana, the country’s leading telecommunication provider has launched the MTN/Esoko M-Agric Service, aimed at providing agricultural information in the form of SMS alerts to its customers. The service will provide information on farming and agric produce through the short code 1900 at a cost of 8p per text. Customers can request for information such as produce price alerts, bids and offers, and news and advisories, using the short code. Other services available on the platform include, inventory counts and transport information. MTN is sponsoring the training of 500 farmers on the use and benefits of the Esoko Information Product. These farmers will also enjoy free SMS subscription to Esoko’s market information for one year. This initiative provides a unique opportunity and platform for famers and agricultural enterprises to interact with their customers through the mobile phone. Launching the service, the Corporate Services Executive of MTN, Mrs. Cynthia Lumor, expressed the telecom giant’s excitement at being part of a project which demonstrates MTN’s commitment to innovation and the provision of world class telecom services to Ghanaians. “We at MTN are very excited to partner Esoko on this project to make available to our valued customers relevant and up to date information related to farming. This is aimed at enriching the lives of our customers by providing them unlimited access to agricultural information,” she said. She expressed the hope that the project would further boost the growth of the agricultural industry which is the backbone of economic development of Ghana. Mr. Lawrence Totimeh, Business Development Manager mentioned that Esoko has information from 36 markets across the country and is located in 15 other African countries. He said “The Esoko service gives the farmer better control over the price of his or her produce as he/she now has extra negotiating power”. The Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Honourable Aquinas Quansah welcomed interventions from Corporate bodies to enable the country attain food security. He urged the 500 privileged farmers who have benefitted from the training to share the knowledge with their colleagues and congratulated MTN/ESOKO for taking such a good initiative. He said “ I believe the Farmer First service will help the farmers as well as customers to save a lot of money and give us good bargain. The 500 farmers were selected from the Dangme East, Samsam-Odumase (Ga West) and Akuapim South farming Districts. The training support is part of efforts to ensure successful implementation of the service by the farmers and also to enable them tap fully into the benefits of the service. Esoko is an agricultural market information platform created to respond to the ever increasing cellular services in Africa which is managed on the web and delivered via mobile. Individuals, agri-business, government and projects can use Esoko to collect and send out market data using simple text messaging. The platform provides automatic and personalized price alerts, buy and sell offers, bulk SMS messaging, stock counts and SMS polling.