Why India needs to embrace Precision Farming in a big way
A recent PwC report placed India third in ranking after the U.S. and China in terms of Agritech funding. This is not surprising since the country has seen a massive boom in tech penetration with mobile phones and high-speed internet becoming a must-have for most Indians.
With the country seeing a sturdy tech framework being built up, new technologies like AI, ML and IoT can be leveraged more easily than ever before. This is further boosted with the government working on AgriStack and finalizing its framework as laid down by IDEA (India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture). As the infrastructure for implementing PF (Precision Farming) becomes more robust, so will its accessibility and affordability for Indian farmers.
So why the need to migrate to Precision Farming (PF)?
In a nutshell, PF is the modern approach to farming that incorporates technology into agriculture to improve productivity, quality, and profitability. This is achieved by a data-driven approach where farm parameters are carefully monitored and recorded. This allows for informed decisions with farm management. With PF, farmers can expect:
Supply Chain +
The supply chain is a key problem which Indian farmers have to deal with constantly. It becomes a bigger problem for them when they are dealing with perishable goods like fruits and veggies. Currently, most farmers depend on local aggregators or Mandis to sell their produce. The farmers in the process make less than they could have since the market prices vary based on the mandi in question. With tech, farmers have better access to traceability and transparency when it comes to prices, allowing them to bypass middlemen completely.
Monitoring and Predictions
PF solutions are often powered by various sensors that help track various farm-level conditions. IoT systems like Fasal Kranti are loaded with these sensors and help farmers track water requirements, soil deficiencies, possible pest outbreaks, and even macro and microclimatic conditions. Armed with all this information, the farmer becomes more capable of mitigating or completely eliminating key farming challenges.
Institutional Credit
Most Indian farmers don’t have access to credit. Many depend on informal loans which come at high-interest rates, further crippling the farmer financially. The majority of farmers don’t have a digital footprint when it comes to financial transactions, making them ineligible for applying for institutional loans. But with technology making its way into agriculture, more and more farmers are transacting online which builds up their credit score and makes them creditworthy in the eyes of established credit institutions.
Generation of Skilled Employment
PF has the potential of generating new forms of employment opportunities within farming that are previously unheard of. As technology gets more nuanced and highly specialised, so will the need for highly specialised personnel to operate them. Agriculture will become an area of interest for people beyond its current demographic with a wider appeal in terms of employment.
The benefits of adopting PF are innumerable and new players will continue to specialise in solving different pain points of farming. With tech penetration in India reaching new levels, the migration of the current farming system to PF is not a distant possibility anymore.
