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Ammon News - The National Agricultural Research Center (NCAR) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched remotely the first online platform to serve farmers, which provides them with agricultural information.

Minister of Agriculture, Khaled Hneifat, valued the NCAR's role, the ministry's scientific arm, by launching this e-service, which is "a technological precedent" in the agricultural sector within the scientific efforts with partners in achieving sustainable development, especially its strategic partner, FAO.

The minister said the continuous world development requires coping with these changes by intensifying national efforts and harnessing "modern and advanced" technology to serve the agricultural sector.

Farmers in their communities use their cellular phones to access specialized, actionable agricultural information without delay, which develops rural communities and improves their livelihoods, the minister said at the launching ceremony.

The application is a first step and a nucleus in developing the agricultural sector, he said, adding that the e-service begins a slew of other similar online measures aimed to serve farmers in line with the ministry's strategy to digitize the sector, and provide services to address challenges.

The application is a platform for awareness and early warning pertaining to many challenges, he said.

For his part, FAO representative, Nabil Assaf, said coronavirus pandemic has proven Jordan's effective policy to the importance of integrating electronic transformation, which has made several achievements that facilitated citizens' businesses.

The platform will work to develop the society's agricultural culture through "rich" content that is reviewed and updated periodically in line with developments and modern technology with the best methods followed globally to increase production and increase economic profits by relying on artificial intelligence techniques, the FAO official pointed out.

NCAR Director-General, Nizar Haddad, stressed the importance of this platform, as the first agricultural e-service available to farmers, noting that the application also provides information on weather forecasts, planting and harvest seasons.