ICRISAT develop app and dashboard to help farmers find right time to sow crops
ICRISAT has developed a new application for famers that will help them achieve optimal harvest by advising the best time to sow seeds. The app was developed by collaborating with Microsoft and Andhra Pradesh government. ICRISAT has also developed Personalized Village Advisory Dashboard for APPSM (Andhra Pradesh Primary Sector Mission) – Rythu Kosam to help officials better manage programs of scale.
A new Sowing Application for farmers combined with a Personalized Village Advisory Dashboard for the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, is hoping to see feedback and radical improvements for agriculture and small-holder farmers in the state.
ICRISAT used Microsoft Cortana Intelligence Suite, Machine Learning and PowerBi/Business Intelligence to help government officials and farmers get accustomed to the new technology. This has enabled ICRISAT to promote digital farming practices.
“Bringing a lot of scattered data together and developing an analytical tool that is comprehensive and gives accurate predictions to the farmers, is urgently needed. We are excited to work with Microsoft to enhance incomes and improve the lives of small holder farmers, and this is going to boost our digital agriculture initiative in a big way,” said Dr. David Bergvinson, Director General of ICRISAT.
Commenting on this development, Anil Bhansali, Managing Director, Microsoft India (R&D) Pvt. Ltd., said, “We are pleased to support ICRISAT to drive impact for farmers through our technology. Agriculture is a crucial economic contributor in India, and the implementation of advanced analytics in agriculture will help streamline and strengthen farming practices. The Sowing App and Personalized Village Advisory Dashboard are developed to provide powerful cloud-based predictive analytics to empower farmers with crucial information and insights to help reduce crop failures and increase yield, in turn, reducing stress and generating better income. We firmly believe in the potential of Microsoft Azure Machine Learning and Power BI to bring efficiencies not only in agriculture, but also in healthcare, education, and beyond. This is a significant start for digital agriculture and can reap benefits in multiple ways as governments and stakeholders discover the potential for technology to unlock and offer multiple solutions for famers.”
The Intelligent Sowing SMS service uses AI to interface with forecasting models (provided by aWhere Inc), weather and rainfall data from past 45 years, past 10 years of data related to groudnut sowing progress in Kurnool district. The data is then used to build predictability and guide farmers to pick right time to sow new crop. The Personalized Village Advisory Dashboard provides overview across various environmental factors that help determine healthy crop yield. The pilot launch is done recently and information will be sent to farmers via SMS in Telugu.
The data collected from farms in 13 districts was uploaded to Microsoft’s Azure Cloud. The dashboard provides data on soil health, fertilizer recommendations, seven day weather forecast etc.
