Dr. Agyeya Tripathi has completed his Ph.D. and holds a Masters degree in Business Administration and another Masters in Electronics and Communication. He is a national resource person for Financial Inclusion under National Rural Livelihood Mission, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India. LESS ... MORE
At present around 58% Indian population is engaged in agriculture as primary source of income. With the aim of becoming global economic powerhouse by 2024-25, increasing income of this large chunk of population becomes inevitable.
The government of India has drafted a policy to double farmer’s income and also announced budget for the same. With highest yield of pulses, milk, jute and second highest yield of groundnut, vegetables, rice, wheat, fruits, sugarcane, and cotton; production is not a matter of concern for Indian agricultural sector. But the major concern lies in small size of land owned by many of farmers which do not provide sufficient income to them. And above all, negative impact of pollution, increasing population density, urbanisation and global warming in forms of flood, drought, over or under rain, locust attacks ruin the crops ruthlessly.
Researchers are trying to find solution of all these problems in Digital Agriculture, also known as smart farming or agriculture 4.0. It is a modern way of practicing agricultural activities with support of technology to upsurge quantity and quality of agricultural yield.
There are mainly three factors in agriculture, human labour, soil and its components and weather conditions.
Digital agriculture encourages technology in all these components as replacing human labour with robots, applying computer vision and deep-learning algorithms to analyze health of soil, using machine learning process to track and predict weather more accurately. It uses data mining and analysis, artificial intelligence, internet of things and other ways to assist farmers in taking correct and precise decision right from selection of crop to quantity of pesticide. It also helps in carrying all agriculture related operational, financial and market information electronically, this helps various stakeholders to establish timely connect and ensure reduced loss.
Various technology and agribusiness organisations have come forward and have shown their interest in digital agriculture. Let us see some available solutions:
AI-enabled device and software to check water and soil health. It performs immediate chemical analysis of sample and gives colorimetric test results in less than 10 seconds.
A start-up came out with a mobile application to timely identify disease of their crops and start its treatment. Few IT-enabled services for farm equipment which help farmers to take required machinery on rent through a phone call or mobile app. Allowing farmers to take cost conscious decision. Drones are being used in agriculture sector for anti-locust spraying. This has been proven an effective solution to kill locust who have been dangerous enemy of our yield in farms. Another usage of drones is in digital mapping of property falling within geographical limits of villages. A pocket-sized machine with AI-based spectral and AI-based image analytics is developed to analyse quality of crops within 30 seconds. It can also provide information about chemical composition and presence of adulteration in honey and milk.
The above advantages, innovations and bright solutions are only one side of the coin. There are some serious issues related to digital agriculture in India. The average farm size available with Indian farmer is extremely less when compared to farmers in Australia, US or Europe. This calls for customisation of digital agriculture application. India is not prepared at infrastructure front to store, compute and process huge data that will be produced by farms with the help of agricultural sensors. And a huge amount of investment is required for such infrastructure development. At present we are not in a position to estimate cost of technology per unit of land and corresponding returns. So, evaluation of technology from economic perspective is difficult.
Average monthly income of Indian farmer is low and doesn’t support affordability to technology solutions. In such situation lowering down the cost of digital agriculture equipment becomes imperative. Provision of Renting and sharing of machineries and equipment can also prove a good option. Average farm size in India is around 1-2 acre. Many of the farmers do not even own land piece and work on rented farms. They change their farm on the basis of season. In such condition, Indian farmers need portable hardware which can be installed and reinstalled easily.
In- spite of abundant yield of crops farmers do not get good amount of profit due to role of middle men. Government’s latest policies ‘New Farm Bill’ has opened up agriculture sector for private players and corporates, this will lead sector to a new direction. The focus on farmer producer organisation and producer enterprises is enough to show how Indian agriculture sector is changing its fate in future. Digital agriculture is the central element for all these positive and developmental changes in Indian agriculture sector.
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