AI-powered Village Profiling Reports Will Replace Government Data in 2019
Kekri is a city and a municipality in Ajmer district in the Indian state of Rajasthan. One health care centre, one government hospital and private nursing homes are nearby.
This is the information that Wikipedia reveals about this village. So if I am a seed manufacturer in northern India hoping to expand from Punjab and Haryana into Rajasthan, how much does this information help me?
Wikipedia is today one of the largest reference websites with contributions from over 72,000 active contributors with about 400 million unique visitors. While I flock to the internet for all my needs, information specific to my needs is not available to help me determine the potential of a prospective market.
Further, Wikipedia tells us about the geography of Kekri
Kekri is located at 25.97°N 75.15°E.[2]
Kekri is centrally situated among Rajasthan’s major cities, Ajmer (80 km), Jaipur (130 km), Kota (140 km), Bhilwara(100 km) and Tonk. The town of Pranheda which has famous temple Pranheda Balaji, is nearby.
And about the economy, this is what can be found, “It is mainly an industrial area, including the Agricultural Mandi (Market Yard), oil mills, woollen yarn mill, and some other industries. The main water source is Bisalpur Dam.”
How much conviction can you gain with these bits of information above and what confidence do you get when you are contemplating the odds of expanding into a distant land?
Village profiling: Adieu dossier, salut tech !
Not many can refute the change that technology has brought to life today. Whether it is in the field of medicine, automation, transportation, connectivity or communication, there is no denying that the quality of life has collectively improved. So when every field has benefitted from these applied sciences of the modern era, so could agriculture.
In our previous articles, we have spoken quite a deal about how the cutting edge technology of info-services, e-governance and satellite imaging is cutting the ice. Today rather than theorizing about what Image Labs can do for you we bring you a slice and dice of the data that could quantify the experience for you. Let’s take a closer look to measure granularity and the depth of our research and focus on how it can help you compare 2 villages, should you need to choose one to expand your business.
In its Village Profiler report, the Image Labs division of Farmguide provides you not just the overview of a village but inferential analysis to review the multiple correlated variables objectively.
Census report — are they just more numbers?
Demographic information of the village around main and marginal male and female, cultivators and agri-labour, to give you an understanding of people residing in the village. One would think HOW DOES THAT MATTER?
Lets simply say it decides the shift from rural to urban in a country, it decides the primary vocation at a place.
Farm Segmentation — This is Where Artificial Intelligence Really Counts
The observations and inferences that can be made from these reports give a 360 degree perspective for those who are already involved in or are aspiring to lock horns in the rural economy. For sake of comparison our two chosen villages are both based in Rajasthan; Kekri and Kumpras.
In our first sample report, we focus on Kumpras, a small village/hamlet in Merta Tehsil in Nagaur district of Rajasthan state, India. It comes under Kumpras panchayat. It belongs to Ajmer division, has a total of 1283 hectares area under cultivation with approximately 80% farm area connected with less than 2 km distance from the road and the nearest bank is at a distance of 4 km and the closest Mandi is 17 km away.
The data suggests that the total population is 1655 with 868 males and 787 female population with a literacy rate of 74% for the former and 45% for the latter but the total working population is 746 only. The report also states that the primary crop in the region is green gram ‘Moath dal’, green gram and mustard as per an analysis of quantities received at the nearest Mandi in Peepar city.
Cropping frequency
It is the number of times cultivation is being done on the farms in one complete year. Cropping frequency is observed by increase or decrease in vegetation over the time axis. Higher the frequency, better are the chances of higher farm income; and if you are a seed supplier or equipment supplier, it means more business where there is more cropping frequency.
It gives you the areas with cropping frequency 1, 2 or 5 and the total agriculture area. In Kekri, there are about 7 farms that crop 5 times in the year and 225 crop twice a year and 153 farms crop once that is about 6% of farms crop just once a year. In Kumpras, 40 farms crop 5 times a year, which is quite a big contrast to Kekri. Only 90 farms in Kumpras crop once a year which is again 5.51% of the total farms.
[Attach cross-sectional data pictures here]
Warehouse section
Mapping and connectivity of all farms so the storage spaces available in and around the village be it CWC, SWC, NABARD with or without private warehouses. It becomes highly relevant in case of horticultural crops which are consumed unprocessed unlike sugarcane for example.
These crops are something akin to FMCG and need better warehouse facilities. In Kekri, 170 farms can access the nearest warehouse with the rest 80% between 11 to 20 kilometres distance from the warehouses.
Railway station section
Connectivity of a farm, any farm to the nearest railway line and station. This particular report gives the distance of farms from the nearest and the farthest railway station in kilometres and metres. It also gives the number of farms that are in close proximity to the railway stations and the outliers.
In case of Kumpras, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, it tells a happy tale where the nearest railway station is just 101 metres from the first farm and the last farm is not more than 11.25 km. In Kekri, the nearest railway station is about 40 km away, that is, about 169 farms are as far as 40 km from the railway station which means the remaining 680 villages are further off with the farthest 174 villages being at a distance of 50 km from the railway station.
Looks like if railways are the most convenient way for you to transport your goods, Kekri might not be your destination of choice.
[Attach cross-sectional data pictures here]
Bank section
Mapping of all Rural Regional Bank (RRB), District Cooperative Central Bank (DCCB) and commercial bank branches and finding the connectivity of the farms to their respective nearest bank branch which farmer can access if under permissible limit to get access to financial services. This report gives you the number of private and public banks in the particular village and its distance from the first and the last farms.
In Kekri, about 20% of the farms are less than 5 km away from the bank and nearly 60% are in the range of 5 to 6 km away, this is good connectivity. In Kumpras, 20% farms are less than 4.6 km away from the bank with the nearest bank at a distance of 3 km. Again, there isn’t one top contender here, both are easing close to the finish line to victory. So this might not be the clause that would close the deal. The investor in Punjab might just need to toss the coin on this one.
Road connectivity
It is the connectivity of the farms with the nearest road be it Kaccha road, state highway or national highway. In Kekri, the nearest road is just 1 metre away and farthest is not more than 2.8 km away. About 174 farms are within the range of 1.3–1.7 metres from the road.
In case of Kumpras as well, the nearest road is also only a metre away and the farthest is 2.731 km away and 864 farms are less than 1.5 km away. This one at least is not going to be the deal-breaker for any great scorer, these two villages are fairly well connected in terms of roadways.
And if all those numbers up there made you a little dizzy, let me tell you that all these reports are available in tabular, charts and satellite images format where the various variables are plotted to further add credibility to the data. In addition to the above, you get soil reports for each village, giving the soil composition with the soil percentage in sand, silt and clay.
You also get a deep-dive into market, waterway, farm size, railway, bank and road connectivity. If you have an R&D department that helps you improvise your products, you would want to match that with a market that is ready for it and hence a little investigation on that front will go a long way.
So, match your R&D to FarmGuide’s intensive analyses essayed in their many reports aimed at improving the complete agriculture experience for unparalleled results.
