India: Technology Can Solve Many of Agriculture’s Challenges
Technology is the mainstay of the modern world. Therefore, it has a critical role to play in modern agricultural practices also, writes Rajesh Aggarwal at AgriBusiness Global. But looking at an average farmland, one will find it almost conspicuous in its absence. Entering the third decade of the new millennium and at a time when India has earned a reputation for its technological prowess, one needs to introspect why India’s agriculture is still stuck in the previous century.
We have reached space and under the sea, and yet agriculture remains one of the most labor-intensive sectors. The bigger issue is, even in the 21st century, Indian farmers are dependent on Monsoon rain and struggle to fetch the right price for their produce when both the issues can be solved with the help of technology. With a growing population to feed and a need to improve their own earnings, it is only imperative that farmers in India leverage technology more.
Tech Interventions That Agriculture Needs
Some of the aspects of farming need quicker technological support than others. These are weather forecasting, climate-resilient seeds, more irrigated land, availability of finance or credit facility, and market link and access. Right from in-hand use of mobile applications and drones to back-end technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data can help farmers measure soil salinity, pH balance, and soil fertility. AI-enabled tools make it possible to generate solution-oriented data indicating weather conditions, type of suitable soil, etc., while analytics provided by big data at the back end provide crucial real-time insights such as whether the techniques are working to identify what changes are needed to prepare for better output.
Realizing the potential of such cutting-edge technologies, Government of India schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) has chosen to integrate AI technology to reduce the time to settle farmers claims and has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with IBM to monitor the agriculture sector.
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