VOICE - 2020
Artificial Intelligence
to boost farming
● Dr.Anitha S.
T he global population will increase by 2 billion and
the world needs to produce 50% more food by 2050
(FAO). However, only 4% of additional land will come
under cultivation to meet this demand.The global need
to produce 50% more food by 2050 cannot be
accomplished if only 4% of the land is under
cultivation.The vulnerabilities arising from climate
change, coupled with the risk of increased
dependency on unsustainable agriculture practices,
can lead to agricultural distress.In this context, use of
latest technological solutions to make farming more
efficient, remains one of the greatest imperatives.
Artificial intelligence (AI) holds the promise of driving
an agricultural revolution at a time when the world
must produce more food using fewer resources. AI-
powered solutions will not only enable farmers to do
more with less, it will also improve quality and ensure
faster go-to-market for crops.Artificial intelligence is
the intelligence exhibited by machines, rather than
human or other animals. AI in agriculture is segmented
into robotics, soil and crop management, and animal
husbandry, and is designed to make farming easier,
more accurate, more profitable, and more productive
for the farmer.
How can AI help to boost agriculture?
Agriculture is slowly becoming digital and there is a
great potential of AI machines to provide information
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to farmers on the quality of soil, when to sow, where
to spray herbicide, and where to expect pest
infestations. Farmers are increasingly using sensors
and soil sampling to gather data and this data is stored
on farm management systems that allows for better
processing and analysis. AI-driven technologies are
emerging to help in improving the efficiency with
respect to crop and soil monitoring, weather
forecasting, predictive agricultural analytics, markets
and supply chain efficiency. AI enables the
development of digital agriculture and strengthens the
farmers in practicing smart farming, smart irrigation,
smart fertilizer application, and disease/ pest diagnosis/
detection, smart spraying, harvesting and precision
agriculture. Some of the AI techniques like Mobile
based Recommender Systems and Expert Systems
can drastically increase the adoption rate of agriculture
technologies like high yielding or disease resistant
varieties, innovative farm implements thereby helping
in increasing farmer’s income.
Applications of AI in Agriculture
a. Improving crop productivity
Climate change has resulted in making traditional
agricultural know-how outdated, especially for
forecasting weather patterns that determine farming
practices for the season. The usage of predictive
analysis with the help of AI could help determine
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appropriate crops to grow in a favourable climate on
a productive terrain and the sowing methodology to
enhance productivity and reduce costs. It helps in
making predictions on the right time to plant, apply
fertilisers, harvest, bale, till, etc. based on climate data,
historical conditions, market conditions for inputs and
outputs, personal information, and so on. Predictive
analysis suggests the right times to sow the seeds
without expensive investment on the part of farmers.
At the right time, farmers were sent automated voice
messages and text messages. Farmers just needed to
have a basic mobile phone (a feature phone). Farmers
did not require to have any scanners or any other
expensive instruments – that’s the power of new-age
technology. The technology can also identify the quality
of the harvested product using the photograph. AI-
enabled robots for harvesting can lead to huge cost
savings by reducing the manual labourers. AI-enabled
robots for crop harvesting save the resources of labour
and time for farmers. Furthermore, crops can be sorted
according to pre-identified grades at the time of harvest,
saving time and enhancing the quality of crops.
b. Soil health monitoring
AI can be used to monitor soil health with the help of
sensors, cameras, and infrared rays that scan the soil
for its nutritional properties. AI-backed soil health
monitoring led to huge efficiency gains in the use of
agro-inputs by cutting the use of chemical
fertilisers.Therefore, AI in analysing and monitoring
soil health helps to improve the sustainability of a given
piece of arable land.
c. Optimization of pest and weed management
AI helps to optimise on weed and pest management
by reducing up to 80% of weedicides and pesticides
used currently. A combination of remotely sensed data,
efficient image classification tools, weather data, and
other relevant data points can be used to distinguish
the weed from the crop. This will confine the usage
of weedicide only to the areas that require
treatment.Remote satellites can monitor crop health
and also warn against pest attacks. Efficient pest
management leads to lower crop and environmental
damage.
d. Water Management
Efficient water management in agriculture can have
a huge impact on the looming problem of water
scarcity. Water usage in agricultural land can be
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optimized by using thermal imaging cameras that
continuously monitor if crops are getting sufficient
amount of water. Sensor drones can identify which
parts of a field are dry or need improvement. This
automation can help farmers better manage their
water problems.Furthermore, the spatial analysis
capabilities of geographic information system (GIS)
technologies help in efficient water management
during irrigation.
e. Precision Farming
Precision farming is another area that can benefit from
AI and it can also help farmers to maximise the space
they have, to be more precise about the types of crops,
weather pattern and when and where we should go
for raising crops. Precision farming uses artificial
intelligence to generate accurate and controlled
techniques that help provide guidance and understanding
about water and nutrient management, optimal harvesting
and planting times as well as when the right times for
crop rotation would be. These processes make farming
more efficient.
f. Supply Chain Management
Predictive modelling using AI can be instrumental in
presenting more accurate demand-supply information
and predicting demand for agricultural produce to
farmers. Although AI in agricultural supply chain
management is yet to make major inroads, its informed
application in supply chain planning and optimisation,
including demand forecasting and logistics, can lead
to huge cost savings for farmers, and solve the
information asymmetry problem for buyers. Therefore,
AI has the potential to improve the agricultural supply
chain efficiency and reduce spoilage.
Currently used AI technologies in Agriculture
Use of Drones
An agricultural drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle
that’s used in farming to help increase crop production
and monitor crop growth. Crop analysis is a task now
being done by AI-centric drone that will do flybys on
crops and utilizing advanced deep-learning algorithms
to monitor crop health. Many farms are taking
advantage of drone technology to provide high-quality
imaging that can help monitor crops while scanning and
analyzing fields to collect necessary agricultural data.
Drones will be used throughout the crop cycle for
early soil analysis, seed planting and gathering data
for managing irrigation, nutrient levels and crop health.
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Drones can use for aerial spraying which is five times
faster than traditional machinery. By scanning a crop
using both visible and near-infrared light, drone-carried
devices can help track changes in plants and indicate
their health and alert farmers to disease. These images
can provide farmers with the ability to determine how
ripe their crops are, and when the crop will be ready for
harvest.
Blue River technology
Blue River Technology has developed a robot called
See & Spray which reportedly leverages computer
vision to monitor and precisely spray weeds on cotton
plants. The cameras and sensors use machine learning
where the images are captured and the machines can
be taught in different weeds. Then also the right
herbicides are sprayed precisely as per encroachment
area.Precision spraying can help prevent herbicide
resistance and reduced the expenditure on weedicides
by around 90% reducing the need for weedicides used
per acre
Harvest CROO Robotics – Crop Harvesting:
Harvest CROO Robotics has developed a robot to
help strawberry farmers pick and pack their crops.
The robot picks up strawberries, helping farmers
reduce the cost of harvest labour. Strawberries need
to be picked in a certain time period and hence
qualified pickers are needed. Harvests CROO
Robotics will save money, increase yields, reduce
energy usage and improve quality.
Plantix- Plant diseases diagnosis app
The Berlin-based agricultural tech
startup PEAT developed the Plantix app in
collaboration ICRISAT and ANGRAUthat identifies
potential defects and nutrient deficiencies in soil. The
app uses images to detect plant diseases, a smart phone
collects image which is matched with a server image
and then a diagnosis of the plant health is provided.
In this way the application uses AI and machine
learning to solve the plant diseases.
Prospera
The Prospera device which can be used in green
houses or in the field, is powered by a variety of
sensors and technologies like computer vision. It has
developed a cloud-based solution that aggregates all
existing data that farmers have like soil/water sensors,
aerial images and so on. It then combines it with an
in-field device that makes sense of it all.
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Crop Sowing App
Developed by Microsoft in partnership with ICRISAT
and Indian weather institutes, uses AI and crop
modelling tools provide farmers customized real time
advisories which helps to define optimal sowing
timings.The app sent farmers customized messages
that advised them on farm operations to carry out.
Farmers who were alerted on their mobile phones
about suitable cropping dates, land preparation, and
soil test-based fertiliser utilisation.
HarithaPriya
Harmonized Information of Agriculture, Revenue &
Irrigation for a Transformation Agenda - The Project
uses wireless sensor networks to collect micro-
climatic information from farms. The data is used to
create advisories and alerts on irrigation schedules
and pest and plant diseases. Based on this state
agriculture officers disseminate personalised crop
advisories in Telugu to farmers by SMS.CRIDA,
ICAR and ANGRAU also partnered with this project
Karshikavivarasanketham
Powered by Department of Agriculture Development
and Farmer’s welfare, Government of India.There is
a centralized knowledge dissemination centre and
which is accessible from 360 degree, round the clock
and around the world. Core of the project is a call
centre which acts as the control point and coordinate
with all other touch points. Public / Farmers across
any region can interact with this system using Phone
Calls, Email, Fax, SMS, Chats, Website and even with
Mobile Application. Application is designed in such a
way that anybody can use with easiness. It is very
simple to use and get regular updates. The mobile
and web application do have a platform for online
selling and buying of the crops. It will open up a new
market for farmers and avoid middle man. The web
platform designed to send SMS, texts, videos and voice
broad cast to phone numbers/mobile application with
an advanced filtering that enables to define right target
groups.
Agromet services for kerala (ASK)
ASK (Agromet Services for Kerala) is an application
by Department of Agricultural Meteorology, College
of Horticulture, Kerala Agricultural University. This
application comes with multi language support
(Malayalam / English). Advisory bulletins will be
available through this application, which consists of
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weather forecast (rainfall, temperature, humidity, wind
speed, wind direction, cloud amount etc.) for the next
5 days. With these data, farmers can take right action
under the given weather condition. The advisory
bulletins will be updated separately for each district
in Kerala on every Tuesday and Friday. The crop
advisory will be preparing by the university and the
weather forecast data will be given by India
Meteorological Department. User can ask question
regarding weather and crops through this application.
24/7 Updates/Alerts regarding weather will also be
available through this application.
Gramophone, Indore -Crop cycle expertise
Gramophone providescrop cycle expertise and help
farmers to build better crop cycles. Their technology
platform leverages machine learning (ML) as well as
AI for predictions that range from pest infestation to
pricing. Based on the data of temperature, humidity
and entomology, the company seeks to provide
“personalized farm management solutions” that would
guide farmers for the optimal cropping cycle.
Agrostar, Pune -Farm advisory App
Agrostar Pune provides comprehensive advice and
tips along with required service by using a combination
of knowledge of agronomy, advanced technology and
lots of data to offer advisory services to Indian farmer.
Agrostar offers service that begins by helping the
farmer identify what their crop needs at the moment
and ends at doorstep delivery of whatever is needed.
Currently operating in the three states of Gujarat,
Maharashtra and Rajasthan.
Jivabhumi’s ‘Foodprint’- Farm produce
aggregation
Jivabhumi,’s Foodprintis AI in farm produce
aggregation helps to aggregates and traces farm
produce, and offers a digital marketplace. It uses
blockchain technology to connect farmers and
institutional buyers via an efficient and traceable
supply chain and has the potential to improve the
agricultural supply chain efficiency and reduce
spoilage.
Gobasco, Lucknow - supply chain management
Gobasco is the AI-optimized automated pipelines for
the agriculture produce supply chain. Apart from the
supply chain, the technology tool is supposed to help
farmers in automated grading and sorting, leading to
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smoother transactions for domestically and
internationally
Challenges
Though Artificial Intelligence offers vast opportunities
for application in agriculture, there still exists a lack
of familiarity with high tech machine learning solutions
in farms across most parts of the world. Exposure of
farming to external factors like weather conditions,
soil conditions and presence of pests is quite a lot. So,
what might look like a good solution while planning
during the start of harvesting may not be an optimal
one because of changes in external parameters.AI
systems also need a lot of data to train machines and
to make precise predictions. In case of vast
agricultural land, though spatial data can be gathered
easily, temporal data is hard to get. For any AI
application to be successful, underlying databases and
the processes employed to populate these databases
must be reliable, secure and updated at any given point
of time. It is essential for the AI based system to
provide intelligent decisions based on the underlying
database. Hence, we should take concerted efforts
to collect and digitize data better. Ultimately, the AI-
enabled solutions cannot sustain without a steady
supply of fresh data to improve and evolve itself which
can only come from non-AI (human) sources. Thus,
knowledge engineering should become a core part of
AI research.The availability of this data and other
related data is paving a way to deploy AI in
agriculture.
In India, the role of artificial intelligence in agriculture
can be much bigger than in any other field. That’s
because it can reduce costs, improve quality, increase
productivity and optimally use resources.The best
thing that AI can do in agriculture is to avoid drudgery
and tedium from many agricultural operations so that
we can put our time and efforts in much better ways
of finding an array of creative AI innovations to
surpass human capabilities. To explore the enormous
scope of AI in agriculture, applications need to be
more robust. Another important aspect is the
exorbitant cost of different cognitive solutions available
in the market for farming. The solutions need to
become more affordable to ensure the technology
reaches the masses. An open source platform would
make the solutions more affordable, resulting in rapid
adoption and higher penetration among the farmers.
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