Big Data today dominates many fields, but scientists at the science congress think agriculture will also soon be driven by data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI).

“With advancement of satellite and drone technology, agriculture is entering the domain of big data,” said Partha P. Banerjee, Asia Pipeline Lead, Bayer Crop Science Ltd., delivering a plenary lecture at ISC 2020 on Tuesday. Incidentally, the State government has already begun experimenting with drone technology for farm data collection and crop pattern analysis.

“From mobile phones to satellites, we are producing data on the farms everyday. If tillers are fit with sensors, we can analyse the soil nutrient conditions of every inch of the farm and its applications are immense. Drone technology and data analytics are already being used to recommend advanced water irrigation strategies and diagnose disease on the farm in real time. This will help farmers understand which part of the farm needs more water or where the disease is spreading from, so that it can be tackled,” he said.

“Yield of a crop is a function of seed and plant genetics, environment and climate, and farm practices. To each of these, we have data layers, for instance, soil health, temperature, humidity, and rainfall for climate input. We have identified 40 key decisions a farmer makes from sowing to harvest. Data analytics can help farmers make informed decisions based on three larger parameters the yield is a function of,” he said. “We are still in the prescriptive analytics stage and science will move towards predictive analytics,” he said.