It seems almost unbelievable that one-third of food production all over the world each year goes to waste. But if the current state of agricultural practices is examined more closely, this fact begins to make more and more sense. From the vices of large-scale industrialised farming to the illiteracy and lack of awareness in farmers, agriculture as an industry is plagued with a multitude of problems. It is these problems that contribute towards inefficient farming practices leading to waste.

This is a huge problem in India, which is heavily reliant on the agricultural industry as a source of livelihood and extremely inefficient when it comes to farming practices. The numbers are more than clear: agriculture provides employment to over 50% of its workforce, but only accounts for approximately 14% of the GDP, depending on the year. Such inefficiency can be attributed to poor farming practices, slow adoption of technology, farmers having traditional mindsets, overuse of pesticides and insecticides, among other problems. This exists as a serious challenge to the Indian economy and the world by extension as similar problems exist in many agrarian economies.

Data/AI Presents a Big Opportunity For Farmers And the Indian Economy

Most farms suffer due to common problems that can be easily curbed but farmers due to their lack of expertise are unable to do so. AI has breathed new life into agriculture as more and more startups are sprouting up tackling issues pertinent to the production of healthy crops. As these companies mature, the issues concerning the macroeconomic state of the country are bound to become more predictable and thus more manageable. So, these AI driven agri-tech companies can play a large role in the economic development of India.

Robotics and Computer Vision

Monitoring crop health is an arduous task, farmers have to stroll around their farms on a daily basis to maintain a healthy yield and all they have to rely upon is their eyes. Companies like Thanos Technologies are solving this problem using Computer Vision. Thanos’ drones can autonomously spray pesticide over large areas of land, as they can circle around a field by themselves reducing the manual labour significantly. However, it becomes easy to overuse pesticides as drones provide an unprecedented amount of ease to the farmer. TartanSense, which recently received $2M in funding, took it a step further, and built their semi-autonomous rovers to tackle a similar problem. Their rovers are equipped with a camera that collect visual data about crops and run AI algorithms on the edge to decide instantly whether or not a cure is needed for weeds, insects or disease management. Their robots precisely spray just the perfect amount of chemicals only on plants that are affected, which prevents overspraying. So TartanSense appears to have improved on the mechanisms of Thanos, at least in principle. Companies like Thanos and TartanSense are a testament to the fact that Computer Vision is extremely relevant to agriculture.

The team at Tartansense and their rover “BrijBot”. Source.

IOT and Artificial Intelligence

Field level data like microclimatic data, crop data and soil data are extremely important for farmers. It gives information about the current state of their crops allowing farmers to make more educated decisions as to when they should fertigate, irrigate etc. This farm level data can be collected by installing sensors across farms as they accurately measure and predict various environmental factors that affect crop yields.

Ahead of the rest in solving this problem through this method is an Indian startup Fasal. Fasal installs sensors in farms which continuously monitors data points like humidity levels, temperature amongst many other critical data points. Their data is fed to the cloud where AI engines analyse the data to make predictions about micro-climate, diseases, and pests. Based on this analysis, it suggests actions to farmers regarding fertilizing and irrigating the crops as well as the place where that specific action is required. This allows crops to be sprayed or irrigated only when they are in need of it, therefore effectively curbing wasteful irrigation and overuse of chemicals. As a direct consequence of making these data-driven decisions, they are in a much better position to get richer yields from their crops than in the past. Fasal’s solution is highly affordable to the everyday farmers of India, keeping in mind frugal solutions have higher chances of adoption in Indian markets.

Me checking out Fasal’s low cost sensors at a vineyard at Bangalore, India

Agriculture 2.0 is on the way in India

The troubling condition of agriculture today can be attributed to a variety of reasons, but it is no question that these data-centric technologies exist as a viable solution to communities facing those problems. The biggest problem with technology adoption for agriculture in India is that farmers cannot afford expensive Tech solutions. Also, the literacy level is low and farmers are unable to familiarise themselves with modern technology, let alone implement it in their everyday farming practices. Due to these reasons it is imperative that new technologies are intuitive and simple to use. Agri-tech solutions should be designed keeping their intended users in mind. In this modern wave of agricultural innovation, companies like Fasal and TartanSense have affordable autonomous solutions that are built perfectly for the Indian market and will hopefully lead the wave of technological adoption in agriculture across India.