CSR PROJECTS
Govi Mithuru: The Service That Reached Half of Sri Lanka’s Farmers — and Why Its AI Relaunch Must Now Prove Itself
Dialog Axiata’s agricultural advisory service reports reaching 1.1 million farmers — roughly half the island’s farming community. In 2025, it was rebuilt around artificial intelligence. The reach is real and disclosed. The harder question, which the disclosures do not answer, is whether reach has become results.
By the ESGNexus Editorial Team · July 2026 · Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
KEY TAKEAWAYS
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Agriculture employs roughly a quarter of Sri Lanka’s working population — about 26% in 2023, on the World Bank’s modelled ILO estimate — while contributing a far smaller share of national output. Any programme that can credibly reach half of that workforce is not a footnote in corporate social responsibility. It is closer to the infrastructure. Dialog Axiata says its Govi Mithuru service does exactly that.
That claim deserves to be taken seriously and tested. What follows traces Govi Mithuru through three consecutive Dialog annual reports, sets out what the company actually discloses, and identifies the one thing the disclosures leave out — the thing that separates a genuine development intervention from a well-run marketing channel.
A service told in three annual reports
Govi Mithuru is a mobile agricultural advisory service. It delivers guidance on cultivation, pest management, crop health and, increasingly, climate-resilient practices to farmers who subscribe through their phones. It is not new; Dialog has run it for years, and by 2023, the company reported that the service, alongside its fisheries counterpart, had reached “over one million farmers” (Dialog Axiata Annual Report 2023, p.22).
The 2024 report is the most detailed. Govi Mithuru reached 1.1 million farmers, which Dialog states covers around 50% of Sri Lanka’s farming population. The platform added 100,000 new users during the year and offered guidance across 35 crop types, with an explicit emphasis on improving yields and promoting climate-resilient farming (Dialog Axiata Annual Report 2024, p.76).
| Reporting year | Reported reach | Coverage claim | Key development |
| FY2023 | Over 1 million farmers | Not stated | Advisory extended to tea farmers |
| FY2024 | 1.1 million farmers | ~50% of farming population | +100,000 new users; guidance on 35 crop types |
| FY2025 | Over 1.1 million farmers | ~50% of farming community | Relaunched as Govi Mithuru AI — trilingual, voice and chat |
Source: Dialog Axiata PLC Annual Report 2023 (p.22); Annual Report 2024 (p.76); Integrated Annual Report 2025 (pp.10, 43). Figures as disclosed by Dialog Axiata; not independently verified by ESGNexus.
The 2025 pivot: from advisory service to AI platform
In 2025, Dialog rebuilt the service around artificial intelligence, launching Govi Mithuru AI, which it describes as the nation’s first AI-enabled agriculture advisory platform. The system is available in Sinhala, Tamil and English, and — importantly — through both voice and chat (Dialog Integrated Annual Report 2025, p.43).
That design choice matters more than the AI label. The persistent barrier to digital agriculture in Sri Lanka is not connectivity; it is literacy and interface. A voice-first tool in all three principal languages lowers the exact barrier that keeps text-and-smartphone agri-apps confined to younger, more literate, better-connected farmers. If the AI relaunch delivers on that promise, it addresses a real equity gap. That is the bet. Whether it pays off is not yet disclosed.
The number that has not moved
Set the three years side by side, and one fact stands out: the reach figure has barely changed. “Over one million” in 2023, 1.1 million in 2024, and still around 1.1 million — the same “50% of the farming community” — in 2025. Two years of a flat number invite two competing readings, and Dialog’s disclosures do not tell us which is correct.
The optimistic reading is saturation: the service may have reached close to the ceiling of farmers who have a compatible phone, a reason to subscribe, and the habit of using it, so the plateau reflects a maturing product rather than a stalling one. The sceptical reading is simpler: growth has stopped. Both are consistent with the published numbers, which is precisely the problem.
There is a deeper gap. “Reached” and “50% coverage” describe registration and access, not active use — and certainly not results. Dialog reports how many farmers the service has reached. It does not report whether those farmers grew more, earned more, or lost less. There is no disclosed data on changes in yield, income, or retention. For a CSR programme positioned as development infrastructure, that is the single most important missing metric, and its absence should temper any reading of the headline figure.
Where it sits in Dialog’s wider community investment
Govi Mithuru is the flagship of a broader model. In 2025 Dialog reported Rs. 446 million in community investment and over Rs. 420 million in disaster relief (Dialog Integrated Annual Report 2025, p.45). Alongside Govi Mithuru sits Sayuru, a companion service for fishermen that delivered weather alerts and emergency communications to over 110,000 day-boat fishermen — around 50% of the national base — in partnership with the Department of Meteorology and the Ministry of Fisheries (Dialog Axiata Annual Report 2024, p.76).
The common thread is that these programmes deploy Dialog’s core capability — reach, connectivity, a subscriber relationship — rather than simply writing cheques. That is a structurally stronger form of corporate responsibility than donation-led giving, because it is harder to replicate and is directly tied to the business. But the same logic raises the bar for evidence. A telecom company claiming social impact through its network must ultimately demonstrate that impact, not just the network.
What to watch
For sustainability and CSR practitioners reading this, three things follow. First, the model is worth studying: capability-led programmes that use what a company is uniquely good at tend to be more durable and more defensible than philanthropy. Second, the disclosure gap is the lesson — reach without an outcome metric, where most corporate CSR claims quietly stop, and it is exactly where scrutiny should begin. Third, for Dialog specifically, the claim would become close to unassailable if the next report added three things: an active-user rate, a retention figure, and at least one independently assured outcome metric such as a yield or income change for a defined cohort of users.
Until then, the honest summary is this. Govi Mithuru, reaching roughly half of Sri Lanka’s farmers, is a genuine achievement, credibly disclosed and consistent over three years. The AI relaunch is a real and well-designed bet on closing the equity gap in digital agriculture. And the question of whether all this reach has changed a single farmer’s harvest remains unanswered in the public record.
ESGNexus will track Govi Mithuru AI’s disclosures in future Dialog reports, and will apply the same reach-versus-results test to CSR claims across Sri Lanka’s corporate sector. For our weekly briefing on corporate sustainability and CSR in Sri Lanka, subscribe free to The ESGNexus Weekly.
Sources & Further Reading
Dialog Axiata PLC, Annual Report 2023 (p.22) — dialog.lk
Dialog Axiata PLC, Annual Report 2024 (p.76) — dialog.lk
Dialog Axiata PLC, Integrated Annual Report 2025 (pp.10, 43, 45) — dialog.lk
Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey Quarterly Bulletin, Q1 2024 — statistics.gov.lk
World Bank / ILO modelled estimate, Employment in agriculture (% of total employment), Sri Lanka, 2023 — data.worldbank.org
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ESGNexus is Sri Lanka’s independent platform for ESG, CSR, and sustainability intelligence. We track company-level ESG performance, regulatory developments, and sustainability data across Sri Lanka’s listed companies, large unlisted corporates, and state-owned enterprises. All editorial content is independently produced. Sponsored content is clearly labelled. Data disclaimer: Information in this article is sourced from publicly available documents. ESGNexus does not independently verify company disclosures. Errors and omissions excepted. |