Increasing Farmer’s GVA
The agriculture and food system has a critical role to play in helping us get to net zero by 2050 as it is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gasses. Farmers will likely be the most impacted by climate change, since they are the least prepared to respond to any changes in the weather. However, agriculture can also be an important component of the solution to the problem. If farmers use the right agricultural practices, they can reduce their emissions, and also sequester more carbon in soil. Data and AI can help us respond better to climate change and create a more resilient agri-food system. Data from the farm can help in accurate estimation of the emissions and climate impact of agriculture. AI on that data can help with climate adaptation, for example, by informing farmers about impending changes to weather, and helping the supply chain be more prepared. The steps involved in both sowing and harvesting come with its own challenges. Adversities faced by a farmer include climatic factors such as rainfall, humidity, drought, floods etc. which makes it difficult for them to prepare the soil, sow seeds, and harvest.
Apart from that, proper analysis of soil nutrients and understanding the scientific parameters for better yield becomes difficult when it comes to manual intervention. To address this, new development approaches using technological innovations eliminate many of these challenges and bring benefits to the industry. This provides us a wonderful opportunity to identify digital solutions that are sustainable, and could help overcome agricultural challenges and accelerate achieving priorities. With technological advancements like AI/ML, IoT, crowdsourcing, remote sensing etc. real-time information such as weather conditions, temperature, water usage or soil conditions empowers key decisions and optimize planning to generate more bountiful yields by determining crop choices and resource utilization.
In this regard, a comprehensive farm-level agriculture monitoring platform or Agriculture Information and Monitoring System (AIMS) has been developed to provide farm-wise continuous monitoring and advisory facility by utilizing satellite data, geospatial intelligence and AI/ML technology. The platform has three different modules, i.e., (1) Farm-level digital database, (2) weather, pest and crop growth advisory, and (3) yield forecast and market advisory. This platform is capable of providing regular intelligence and advisory to equip farmers with timely information for better decision making to reduce adverse impact of erratic and irregular weather patterns.
At Vassar Labs our aim is to work towards a climate resilient future and bring precision into the agri industry. The system provides decision support to stakeholders during the entire lifecycle of the crop i.e. agro climatic zone planning, crop acreage & yield, pest infestation, crop health advisories, crop loss assessment and early warnings on emergency events to ensure preventive actions. The mobile application informs on land details, soil type, irrigation practice, raises advisories on sowing, soil moisture stress and pest alerts. The system goes beyond for the well being of a farmer which directly helps key authorities by automated crop insurance process, extended services that improve efficiency for better outreach and making farmers informed about best of available. Apart from that lastly the system links many beneficiary schemes that support a farmer by keeping them updated on the best practices and various central/federal programs.
Usage of cognitive technology in agriculture not only helps farmers to automate their farming but also shifts to precise cultivation for higher crop yield and better quality while using fewer resources which increases efficiency as well as maximizes a farmer’s GVA. Vassar Labs enables AgriTech to adopt data-driven, precise farming that will help boost the agricultural industry in the region and optimize yields. Cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), IoT and analytics can help optimize agricultural processes, capture carbon dioxide before it is released into the atmosphere, adopt a circular economy and make the whole industry more sustainable. Drones and robots can assist with soil and field analysis, crop spraying and harvesting. Our aim is to accelerate actions towards transforming food and agriculture systems through better data, predictive analysis, and access to advanced analytics, with a dynamic infrastructure which complements current industry needs to achieve the sustainable development goals for a climate resilient future.
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