BBP NETWORK
Our country is known as the leading agricultural country in the world. Even in this epidemic situation, food grains have been exported to the whole world. About 64% of the total population of the country is mainly dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. About 30% of the country's total national income comes from agriculture. About 55% of India's total land area is cultivated annually and 7% is cultivated once every two to three years. In the past few years, the production of food grains has increased in line with the increase in population. India being an agricultural country, most of the inhabitants are mainly engaged in agriculture for their livelihood. Extensively grown food grains, almost all of the produce is used for household food needs. As a result, the amount of marketable crops, exports are very low as the surplus crop is less. But due to overpopulation, the amount of agricultural land per capita is decreasing drastically. Due to the decrease in land area, there is pressure on the land to meet the food needs of the large population, i.e. crops are cultivated. As a result, improved methods are being used to produce crops. Agriculture is becoming more modern day by day. Technology and advanced parts are used. Likewise today, Sayantan Saha (KriDarp Founder & MD) and Debasmita Lahiri (Chief of GIS and Director) will discuss the better technology of agriculture in the digital world...
how much technology are farmers using in the present era?
The United Nations projects that by the year 2050 the population of the world will be 9.7 billion.With the relevance of over 60 percent of the world population on agriculture for food, the pressure to increase production to meet demands doesn’t seem to ease. Coupled with climate change, which is leading to rising global temperatures, levels of carbon dioxide, and frequency of droughts and
floods, along with increasing labour costs, high production costs, and unpredictability poses a major challenge to the future of agriculture. Hence, the goal is to increase productivity sustainably. To increase sustainability a very precise and calculated set of practices designed specifically for a plot needs to be followed and to follow best practices data needs to be recorded and analysed digitally. Our nation is progressing drastically in domain of technology and in this era we are able to acquire, process and deliver a large amount of information simultaneously. This progress in technology has enabled us to enhance utility and productivity of any resource. Around 60% of Indian land accounts as arable and is under agricultural practice. There has been initiation in the process of incorporating
technological applications in past couple of years. Farmers have developed skill capacity in communication over internet, radio and television for sharing knowledge on agriculture practices among the community. Usage of high quality seeds and irrigation practices has also helped subsequently. Access to soil cards helped in understanding soil type for certain crops. Recently, India
is also adopting IoT based solutions and benefits of remote sensing.
What are the problems to be faced in providing farmer-friendly services?
Indian agricultural scenario is dependant mostly on customary practices. Enabling the capacity for logical practices would be the first task in hand. Next would mitigating land degrading factors in a cost-efficient manner, managing the output market distortions and efficient management of waste surge from post-harvest lands and livestock practices. Directing current agricultural scenario towards sustainable practice is going to be the main task.
What is the importance of organic fertilizers in the market of chemical fertilizers?
Chemical fertilizers are not a sustainable solution. The nutrients provided through chemical fertilizers are only temporarily held in the soil and most of the time it gets washed out to nearby water source and causes contamination. Nutrients good for soil is not necessarily good for water
quality. The wash-off lead to several problems like eutrophication, bio-magnification and ultimately enters the food chains in form of unnecessary elements which may or may not have adverse effects.
Whereas organic fertilizers provide the required nutrients and restores the soil health and maintains the ecological balance. India has been using plant and animal based fertilizers.
What things do you supply for the convenience of farmers?
Currently, we are using satellite and aerial imaging combined with computer vision for precision farming. That said, we are processing data acquired from agricultural lands to diagnosis the health of
the land and optimize productivity enhancing solution based on the report. Our services and products covers both farming and livestock sections of agriculture. To support the process, we also have an active IoT infrastructure and for the logistics of agricultural practice, we have marketplace
model in place along with block-chain networks.
What problems do farmers have to face to use drones?
One of the most important factor for agriculture is proper management of water. Drones are going to help farmers in monitoring the moisture situation in crops. Sensors built in drones are efficient in
capturing information on larger area at a given time. Other than detecting water stress they also can detect soil nutrients present and plant health using the data captured. The process is comparatively speedy and efficient in providing required information on the status of the land or crop. Our
multipurpose drones are also fitted with facilities for fertilizer spray applications. So, this significantly reduces human labour hours too. Building skill capacity in farmers to independently use the technology is going to be a slow and steady process.
How do you provide services to the affected areas?
The current health status of an agricultural land is dependent on several factors like soil nutrient levels, moisture status, physical aspects like pH, humidity, temperature, health of crops etc. These factors need to be in a very specific range for specific cultivations in order to provide maximum
productivity.
With the help of technology we have, all these factors are easily detectable. Once we are aware of the problem it is easier to optimize solutions best for individual lands. With knowledge in hand and experts in our team we go ahead for farm management. Apart from that, agriculture is
just not about producing but also systematically moving the produce to meet demand and supply. For that we have cold storage and warehouse digitization suites, FPO suites. Another section of our
product and services include livestock management. That has tracking and health monitoring facilities.
Briefly describe your product services?
Our Solutions diversified to different aspects of Agriculture and farming so that it can justify our slogan to create an ecosystem in the confluence of science, technology, and empathy. Our solutions are: -
1. Farm Management Suite: It’s a farm digitization and business intelligence solutions which maximizes per acre value. With our FMS you can digitize the entire cultivation process, improve farm operation and business intelligence. You will also be able to drive profitability while taking smart decision making by using our FMS with data driven decision.
2. Farm Risk Assessment Tools: It’s a predictive solution for risk monitoring and risk mitigation at region, plot, and crop level. With FRAT one can mitigate risk for Agri lending and crop insurance. FRAT collect and utilize insights using Satellite image and ground truth to provide prediction modelling & near real time insights that help establish the performance of plots,
improve yield output and much more.
3. LiveStock Management Suite: It’s a Livestock farm digitization and business intelligence solution and hardware infrastructure. LMS has tracking, health monitoring and other important aspects which are very essential to run a livestock farm or business. LMS collect data through different hardware and infra modules and give predictive solutions and helps to make precautions to mitigate risks and drive profitability.
4. Cold Storage and Warehouse Solutions:
Our CSW Suite comes with IoT modules and other Digital infra tools to make and keep your space digitize and help you to improve and drive profitability by enabling our solution. Also, it helps to mitigate risk by predictive model and less human interaction.
5. FPO Suite: FPO suite is Digital tools platform to the FPO’s which improves unit operation and business intelligence. In returns it gives FPO’s the necessary solutions to make their business future proof and drive profitability.
6. Computer Vision & GIS technology:
Inhouse and indigenously built Vision technology help farmers to take necessary precautions and prescribe them the effective solutions for their betterment. Our GIS tech team works on various aspects to give real time insight about weather, land, and other areas to make it future proof and help our clients to take smart decisions which in turns drive profitability and make sustainable development.
7. Agriculture Drones: Our indigenously built drones can be helpful for the farmers in terms of fertilizers or water sprinkle, seeding and scouting. Also, it can be a great option to carry their produce in the remote areas because our drones are multipurpose utility drones. Hyperspectral sensors fitted on drones are able to capture data to analyse soil and crop health.
We’ve more products in the pipeline with time we will let know everyone about all of these.
KriDarp – AE Agrovet Solutions is in the race to win “Best Agrovet tech startup 2022” by Business Awaz . KriDarp is a partner with the UN for Agriculture initiatives and is in the process of to tie up with the Government of India for the same. Also, it has started working with several regional government for their requirements as well as working with private sectors. For demo please email
at : sales@kridarp.in or visit the website: www.kridarp.in
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