The fight for farms around the world
Learn why the AI Farm team decided to answer the Call for Code
Our world is a beautiful place — and keeping it that way takes unified awareness and action. Achieving a sustainable environment is a team effort, and when confronted with challenges such as climate change, it takes a village to face its unpredictability head on. We all want a thriving world — one full of vibrant landscapes, unique wildlife, and one that renders health and nourishment for years to come. We continue to be reminded that technology can play a role in making this a reality.
In support of Call for Code, the AI Farm team from India built an intelligent system aiming to provide farmers with the information they need to adapt their crop strategies to optimize water usage and control disease. Using IBM Watson IoT, this low-cost system uses sensors to monitor ground water levels, temperature, and humidity as well as develops hyperlocal weather forecasts so farmers can prepare their crops and maintain sustenance.
We were able to catch up with the creator of AI Farm, Kalicharan Nagakrishnan, Senior Associate at Cognizant Technology Solutions, to learn about his solution and why he wanted to participate in Call for Code. Check out what Kalicharan had to say below:
What problem does your solution solve in a unique way?
Due to the change in unpredictable seasons, a farmer can’t get better results by using his/her traditional farm maintenance and irrigation techniques that learned from their experience. Also, one of the key reasons for the shrinking ground water level is due to cropping patterns, which is skewed toward crops that use more water. Water requirements will vary based on crop selection and the evapotranspiration. There are some solutions available, but a farmer needs to invest a lot of money in purchasing the hardware, and they need to replace their existing products with a new one — and those hardware’s can’t think, they will just do what you instruct them do to. Additionally, most of the manuals, operating procedures, and farming knowledge base is available only in English, which is prohibiting for most farmers in the world.
What inspired you to enter into Call for Code?
I never participated in hackathons until now. I decided to get involved because I was inspired by the topic IBM gave, and thought Call for Code was a good platform to help society while testing/improvising my skills at the same time.
What is one interesting fact you have learned through this project?
There are many good lessons I learned on this project, but probably the most important one is realizing that you don’t always need to write code to develop and deploy ML or AI models. There are other ways to achieve your intended goal.
Call for Code is the premier platform for technologists and problem solvers of all kinds to learn about the most pressing issues at hand, and build tangible solutions to address them. AI Farm is one of many solutions that show true promise in combating pervasive issues associated with climate change. Are you ready to do your part? Contribute to an open source project today!
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