welcome readers let me narrate you a story today as the sun rises over the Lush
field of Pat a small village in Bihar, Shakuntla Devi steps out of her modest home not with a hoe or a sickle but with a Sleek tablet in hand the year is 2025 and the pH of Indian agriculture has trans formed dramatically. Kissan Mitra the artificially intelligent assistant on her device today’s weather forecast suggest a 30% chances of light showers shall we adjust the irrigation schedule.
Just a decade ago such a technology seemed like a distant dream for a small
scale former like her now it’s an integral part of her daily routine as she walks through her field swarms of Nano drones Buzz overhead their multispectral cameras scanning every inch of the crop the data they collect feeds into the kissan mitra neural network providing realtime insights and crop Health pest infestation and nutrient deficiencies alert alert kissan Mitra suddenly announces all signs of stem Bora detected in the northeastern quadrant of your paddy field recommended action targeted application of neem based biopesticide. Shakuntla Taps her approval and a Sleek solar powered robot emerges from his charging station it Glide silently through the field his Precision sprayers delivering the exact amount of biopesticide needed leaving the rest of the crop untouched. Shakuntla remembers her grandfather commenting you won’t believe it but we used to spray entire field with chemicals hoping to kill pest now look at us talking to machines watching robot helping us crops is like a magic Shakuntla Smiles remembering her
own initial skepticism but there is results were undel crop yield has doubled water usage has halfed and for the first time in the generations young people are returning to agriculture oned with a tablet and a degree in agritech as the day progresses kissan Mitra ke shakuntla Devi updated on various aspects of her Farm Tomatoes will be ready for Harvest in 3 days current market price suggest waiting for additional 48 hours for Optimum returns says kissan Mitra by Sunset as Shakuntla Devi retires the day analysing analytics she feels a sense of empowerment that her ancestor could never have imagined the AI revolution had not just transformed agriculture it has revolutionize the rural life itself as she prepares for bed shakuntala
glances at the wall of fame in her
living
room there alongside photo of her
grandparents working in sunp fields
hangs her own portrait shakun Davi AG
Tech Pioneer of
Pat good night kasan Mitra she says uh
setting her tablet aside good night
shakun G the responded rest well
tomorrow we shall cultivate the
future in the quiet of the Night Under
The Canopy of stars the field of Pat
hums softly with the promises of New
Dawn where tradition and Technology TS
in Perfect Harmony nurturing not just
crops but
dreams today fireside chat with me is Dr
Shri Kant Rupa vatam whola is the head
Innovation Hub and Senior scientist at
International crop Research Institute
for the semi
tropics Shri Kant holds a PhD in post
Harvest Technologies from Messi
university New Zealand Shri Kant is
experienced in process re engineering
Innovations using artificial
intelligence drones and big data
analytics for decision support in crop
nutrition and protection welcome Dr Shri
Kant we are delighted to have you join
us for this fat chat your presence adds
a great value to our
discussions thank you
sir so um before we start the ACT ual
discussion on artificial intelligence I
would like you to actually enate what is
it about uh you know the problem faced
by various Farmers uh which we are going
to address to artificial
intelligence the problems faced by
farmers are well known one is getting
proper seeds at the right time getting
other inputs like fertilizers or prop
protection chemicals like pesticides at
the right time advisories related to
climate and protection at the right time
and the much difficult thing Harvest and
after harvest prices so these are
manifold problems that the farmers face
in our country and across the developing
world right so I think you have really
set the stage to start our discussions
today so uh to start with with the
Artificial Intelligence coming into play
how do you really think that artificial
intelligence improves the crop yield and
help in management of pest
infestation yes AIA is now playing a
very big role in improving crop yields
Pest and diseases take away around 30 to
40% of the crop losses that are reported
actually because of pest and disease
infestation and there are AI tools and
Technologies and applications right now
based on artificial intelligence and
machine learning which help in diagnose
the pest and give valid correct
recommendations which are targeted to
the individual farmer so this is the
benefit of artificial intelligence when
it becomes targeted advisory to the
farmer who is facing a problem on a real
time so this is the major thing that
happens is when you address the problem
at the right time then you can take the
control measures of reducing your crop
losses so that’s where we see artificial
intelligence has come up in a big way
like for example we give the example of
plantic app which is is freely available
to Farmers within India in around 18
Global languages and Indian languages so
the farmer can use a smartphone and
actually with taking a image that is in
front of them the damage that is there
to a plant they can actually get the
recommendations based on the detection
that is available in the application so
this really brings down their cost of
input and buying spurious chemicals
which may not be needed for their Farm
nice so uh coming to that next one what
I actually see is that there’s lot of
Buzz around irrigation impact the
artificial intelligence has so what do
you think are the real impact on the
irrigation system and how does the
environment benefit uh using this
AI yeah this is manifold challenge
actually because we have very scarce
resources water so what we’re trying to
do because we are also working as an
agency in semi Tropics the real issue is
the distribution of water that comes
into picture one is harvesting those
water then utilizing it properly
artificial intelligence actually is
helping out in enabling those
groundwater resources or the irrigation
channels to be used properly by actually
seeing how we can um actually model out
soil moisture levels and the crop
requirements and then enable irrigations
at the real required timeing for each
crop we need to customize and AI is
actually helping us to do the automation
of the whole irrigation system so a
farmer we know very clearly how the pump
sets are even switched on or off I think
we’re going beyond that to monitor soil
moisture and based on the crop give
appropriately the irrigation so this is
procision farming into picture
especially for irrigation the
environmental benefit definitely the
water use efficiency goes up you can use
it for other purposes and this is where
uh the collective resources within the
village can be conserved and used
effectively right very nice actually I
think this is where um the whole
artificial intelligence focus should go
uh in in in so far as irrigation is
concerned so uh the next question to you
is that um we frequently hear about
terms like weather
forecasting uh predictive predicting
weather patterns uh what is that all
about could you just throw some light
about it yes sir weather the biggest
challenge we really face right now is
predi
early and this effects right from sewing
to harvest everything that the farmer
does climate play is a very big role
even sewing a crop like for example
ground nuts it is the most uh costly
input is seed if there is a two or three
week dry spell especially in dry lands
they lose the entire seed germinated
seed actually is a loss they can’t even
go and reinvest Andy buy the seeds it’s
so expensive this is the place where the
last 20 30 years historical data of
weather can be taken up modeled and
based on the crop we can actually also
take up a little bit of forecast that is
available from IMD and other sources and
actually tell the farmer this is the
best window to sew your crop because we
are very sure that this crop Will
Survive so in this direction we have
made some lot of inroads in developing
intelligent uh systems agricultural
systems advisory tools that will benefit
Farmers so that’s the biggest thing from
weather point of view yeah Dr shrat I I
frequently hear about um the artificial
intelligence uh where there is a
surveillance system which can be
installed using artificial intelligence
what is you have really worked in the in
the Drone technology so would you throw
some light how the rural farmer
especially will benefit from from this
artificial intelligence surveillance
using of
drones drones are probably expensive the
surveillance right now the drones that
are used mostly in our country are
basically for doing using it for spray
operations either for vde or application
of pesticides so using drones for
actually with multi-spectral sensors
actually
can discriminate the hotpots where the
diseases are there and if you use
pesticides or fungicides you can
actually Target your spraying only to
those Pockets where the disease or the
pest is there by this actually we can
reduce the amount of agrochemicals used
in the field actually this brings down
the input cost and also addresses the
very important labor issue that is
within our economy right now the biggest
challenge I believe is also labor
availability at the right time so this
is a critical role that the drones can
do and even autonomous vehicle can help
and this is where AI comes into the
picture into taking up these models
which the machine learning models which
can actually do the processing at the
same time and help in taking those quick
decisions which are precise so that’s
where we see the roles of drones and
surveillance really it seems like a
sci-fi movie is coming into the rural
areas okay so coming to a very important
and pertinent question for all Farmers
concerned and and the agriculture sector
as concerned is about uh how does it
artificial intelligence helping uh the
yield monitoring income
optimization and you know very much
important factor is the supply chain how
to bring the products what they are
manufacturing what they getting in the
rural area up to the market so in the
supply chain so how do you think is AI
helping in the agriculture
business yeah it’s a very big question
actually concerning yield monitoring
itself for example the Trinity of
interventions that a farmer could take
is about the seed after that fertilizer
and input so the vet chemistry Labs take
time and the soil health card and making
it in an available form and a palatable
form it’s all costly Affairs we have to
do it regularly so what we see right now
is dry chemistry using diffusion spectr
reflectance spectroscopy and building AI
models to do the soil Health character
istics remotely and at a very speed rate
and also do itting at a much much
reduced cost so that we can give
accurate information so that the farmers
get higher yields so this is critical
for farming and I think a lot of money
can be that is wasted on these reagents
and the time and the labor and the
inputs that go for soil tests can be
reduced in the long term so this is one
place where we see yields and enhancing
can be done much better and monitoring
them using remote sensing Technologies
there is lot of open-source satellite
data S one Sentinel 2 and and also the
radar data that is available we have
done lot of um experiments and also we
have seen that products are coming up in
in India by private players also
wherein yield predictions can be done
during the prop cycle so this role can
be fulfilled with lot of better accuracy
I say uh which was previously not there
that’s where machine learning algorithms
help in monitoring that and coming to
the income optimization or the supply
chain uh place I think this is the area
which will dramatically improve in the
future because right now we know the
prices availability and the supply chain
has hiccups and issues in many aspects
because there are too many players but I
think AI will help in restoring that in
a very different way by doing prediction
modeling before the Harvest Time and
engaging all the PE players in the
ecosystem this is where we should not
forget that yes farmers are the primary
beneficiaries of artificial intelligence
and the applications that are coming up
but the supply chain has other actors
who are equally important like the
aggregators and even those who carry
these materials because the volume of
Agriculture produce is really large and
the quality which is really the
discriminator for the prices can
improved because of AI interventions for
example I again come to maze or
groundnut crop if somebody has produced
if a farmer has produced a crop that is
more healthier with less toxins after
toxins is a big issue we try to get into
like taking a sample and taking it to a
lab 3 4 days for the Eliza test to give
you an answer and how about doing that
in the field at the processing place or
at the Traders place and telling them
hey this this has less toxins actually
it can go for exports so giving more
prices to the harvested produce at the
Traders level is now possible because of
AI so these things will in the Long Way
change the way trading is done and the
benefits can go and trickle down more to
the farest I think that is the biggest
unexplored and the potential area of the
future is how can we see that these
Technologies can help in getting more
money and income to the farmers at the
end because producing is one aspect but
the real issue is even during the gluts
how do you enable markets at distant
places with looking at quality and post
Harvest Technologies through artificial
intelligence right fantastic I think um
our audience must have got the feel of
how really the artificial intelligence
is setting a stage in agriculture
Revolution so um it’s all good but now
what are the challenges the farmer
generally face while implementing this
artificial intelligence in the
agriculture
sector see for India actually for us the
biggest benefit we have is a very low
cost of mobile data most of the
applications that the farmer use for
advisory off late are through social
media and through mobile applications so
The Upfront cost if you say per se has
dramatically come down last few years
especially because of the 5G also the
cost lowered cost
the second thing is if the if there is
investments into the iot sensors and
also other tools that the farmer needs
to put in their land then that that is a
place where the upfront cost can come to
the farmers and I believe that
technology is going to become lot lot
cheaper while we can do the
demonstrations right now with some
Progressive farmers and at few places
with latest gadgets or the tools not
everybody is going to buy a drone but
the group of farmers that we talk about
the farmer producer organizations that
the government has started I think it
will benefit when the the drones the
kissan Dron scheme which is already in
in India can actually train Farmers
or the entrepreneurs and who will do
that uh real U doing the you know the
drones can be used as a service model so
that not everybody has this high cost
equipments but at a service cost and for
maintenance so this I think for the
small holders and the small Holdings
that our Farmers have this is a very
good uh way of actually model that can
help in the long run to bring down those
upfront cost that we usually encounter
because even mechanization we Face the
same thing for small Holdings how can
somebody take up tractor or heavy
implements and their purchases so I
believe that this this is one way of uh
uh cutting down the cost and
sharing resources that are available in
a village or Village or two or a cluster
of villages so this is the future
perfect perfect so can you share some
examples of how this artificial
intelligence initiatives in rural area
have impacted and what are the
community-led initiative various
organization has taken today I believe
this citizen science is something that
is evolving continuously over the last
10 years people give data and that’s
where the community plays a significant
role in actually monitoring crop Health
just like we saw in the pandemic where
people used mobile applications to give
the status of their health and then the
models came after getting the quality
good quality data from the crowd Source
even in plant protection we could manage
huge number of uh images and image data
sets and made training data sets because
the initiative was first even though it
was led by a private player government
and actually the farmers actually took
over sourcing lot of images of PL
damages I think citizen science is the
way of the future and collectively their
role in co-developing artificial
intelligent products and services um I
think that is an area that is most
upcoming within our country and in the
developing world and I think there are
the solutions with the community who can
participate and actually get the benefit
back I appreciate that so today the fir
side chat eliminated how artificial
intelligence is revolutionizing
agriculture from MTI to Bazar AI
empowers Farmers with precise insights
about their soil Health optimizing uh py
usage through Predictive Analytics
generative AI chatbots provide realtime
advice to Farmers helping them select
the ideal Beach varieties and manage
crop diseases and Kira
infestation AI algorithm crunch billions
of data points to guide Farmers on
Optimum Card application reducing waste
and enhancing yields on the Bazar front
AI enables financial institutions to
better assess lending risk and ensure
Farmers based on predictive crop
analytics from soil sensors to Agri fintech AI Innovations are sowing the seeds of an agriculture Revolution MTI Pani Beach and CAD AI
leads the farmer Squad K controlled and be Insight with AI agriculture future is
bright as we conclude it’s clear that the future of Indian agriculture is
bright with experts like Dr shrat leading the way towards a more
,sustainable and prosperous farming sector thank you very much uh doctor for
joining