Agriculture is the backbone of the country’s economic system, as it provides employment opportunities to a massive proportion of the population, along with food and raw materials. Today, the vital turning point in the field of agriculture has arrived with the arrival of Agri-tech (Agriculture Technology). The proper use of technology in this field with the focus on improving yield, profitability, and efficiency is the motive of the Agri-tech industry. Earlier, people use to look down on this profession due to the frequent problems faced by the farmer, and because of the low generation of revenue. However, Agri-tech has improvised modern farming by combining various technologies such as analytics, mobility, cloud, automation, and biotech to the agricultural field. The severe problems like small fragmented lands, soil erosion, and lack of mechanization have been dissipated after approaching Agri-tech, especially by the African and Indian Farmers.
Investing in agriculture is essential for economic growth and job creation among the African and Indian farmers. However, high barriers, such as lack of skills, infrastructure, lands, access to finance, were still there. To remove all these constraints, initiatives were taken by the people with great innovative ideas to backup agriculture with technology. There are many techniques used in this occupation, but majorly these three are being used the most – “Sattelite Imagery, Usage of Drones, and IoT devices.”
Satellite Imagery
The satellite imagery (also called Spaceborne photography) is the process of taking images of the planet, from a Government or business operated satellite. It allows the user to detect countless agricultural activities and localize issues like irrigation and fertilization. Apart from providing benefits like farm seasoning planning, it can also be utilized for farm water management and crop fertilization.
The main applications of Satellite Imagery are found in the agricultural sector of Animal Farming and Fisheries. For farms with livestock, it helps in tracking many signs like the temperature, the activity level of animals, their behaviour, and the sleep cycle. And it allows farmers to track the problems and find their solutions. GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) is the one which helps in locating the individual animal while Satellite Communication helps farmers detecting any unusual activities. For the farmers practising Pisciculture, it exposes the bloom of phytoplankton and fish-kill, which enables workers to take preventions as soon as possible. And additionally, it keeps a check on the temperature and visibility of water which is helpful in the distribution of fish food, as fishes tend to eat less food within a low-temperature environment and less clarity of the water.
Satellite Imagery a part of Agriculture practice in India:
The Indian state of Maharashtra decided to start a project known as ‘The Maha Agri-tech Project’, to reduce agricultural risks for farmers by implementing AI-based solutions which are monitored by Satellite Imagery. The satellite imagery and analysis from the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Application Centre (MRSAC) and the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), were used to access land and crop conditions of specific areas. They continuously advised farmers from the district of Maharashtra on when, to begin with, seed sowing of rabi crops during winter and spring, and Kharif during monsoon and autumn.The construction of a database for soil nutrients, rainfall, moisture stress, was the central focus of this project.
Another great project, Crop production forecast, introduced by the Government of India, uses Satellite Imagery and remote sensing data, for enhancing the agriculture industry. The projects like CAPE (Crop, Acreage and Production Estimation), conceptualized by ISRO, and FASAL (Forecasting Agriculture output using Space, Agro-meteorology and Land-based Observations), realized by developing the methodology for the in-season forecast, are some of the initiatives taken by the Government.
Geographical Topography:
There are three well-defined crop seasons in the northern and interior parts of India – Kharif(June-September), Rabi(October-March), and Zaid(April-June). And the farming is classified as Rainfed and Irrigated(based on moisture for crops), and dryland and wetland farming (further classification of rainfed agriculture). The Satellite Imagery allows the farmers to know accurately about the right time for cropping the correct type of crop. The advanced features present in it, such as Automated mapping field, Remote sensing, Crowd-driven, and GIS(Geographical Information System) makes it more prominent for the farmer to take correct and smart decisions to increase the yield of crops.
The remote sensing satellite provides crucial data for monitoring soil, like snow cover, drought, and crop development, which helps the farmers to plan timings and the amount of irrigation they need for their crops. A region’s agricultural output can be predicted well in advance by the system’s real analyzing power, which also anticipates the effect of food shortage of that particular area.
Challenges in Satellite Imagery:
- Because the vast portion of the earth’s surface is covered with land, satellite databases are enormous, making image processing a time-consuming task.
- Weather conditions like mountain tops can affect image quality. Also, Cloudy weather, humidity, and moisture in the climate are the significant issues that affect the image quality.
- Privacy concerns are the most crucial point to be considered, which sometimes is not possible for a user to maintain.
Overcoming Challenges:
- With the development of new technologies like DSP (Digital signal processor), FPGA (Field-programmable gate array), real-time image processing has become more accessible.
- Licensing of the device makes it secure for the user to use satellite imagery.
Usage of Drones
A drone is a robot that can fly autonomously by the software-controlled flight plans, embedded in the system with onboard sensors and GPS (Global Positioning System). It is more formally known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or Unmanned Aircraft Systems(UAS). An Agricultural Drone is used in optimizing operations, increasing crop production, and monitors crop growth. The sensors and digital imaging capabilities of drones provide a clear picture to the farmers of their farms. It allows the farmers to take a bird’s eye view of their fields which helps in observing many issues closely such as, soil erosion, pest, and fungal infection.
The multispectral images from drones are capable of giving near-infrared photos, in addition to a Visual Spectrum View of the field. The essential feature of drones is that it provides a clear view of healthy and unhealthy crops which is generally not visible from naked eyes. The weekly, daily, and even hourly analysis of the fields, provides a clear picture to spot trouble areas.
Agricultural Drones in India:
To increase agricultural production with the help of farming techniques, the Indian states like, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka and some northern states of India turn to Agricultural Drones for setting up their businesses. The State Government, along with startups and private firms, is helping farmers throughs various Agri-Schemes to monitor their crop health and improve their quality of production. The farmers of Maharashtra, who grow sugarcane in their farms have used Drone technology with the NDVI (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index). And RGB sensors were used for the detection of diseased crops which improved the quantity and enhanced the quality of the crop.
Tamil Nadu Government also collaborated with some college students to manufacture custom drones for helping their state farmers in improving their standard of living. The North-Eastern states of India, are using Drones for monitoring the plantations in their region, as they mainly rely on the Step-Farming technique. Irrigation patterns can be determined by these sensors to monitor terrain and crop health in that area. The accurate and adequate data obtained from the agricultural drones help the farmers to decide the crop rotation, their types, quantity, and quality of fertilizers to be used in their farms.
Geographical Topography:
Some farmers emphasize more on mixed vegetation, which includes overstory and understory plant vegetation, the one where there are tall trees as well as small plants. In this type of vegetation, it is challenging to keep an eye on understory plants; hence the Agricultural drones make this work easier for farmers. Understory plants are spatial and spectrally similar, and sometimes, they are blocked by the tall trees; hence the agricultural drones come into play for monitoring the small saplings. The Remote Sensor can identify the sunrays and can keep track of the amount of sunlight required for small herbs, shrubs, and climbers.
Aerial mapping determines the area be covered and space to be left between rows while planting.
The most prominent sensors, Light Detection and Ranging (LDR) work well with mixed vegetation, as its pulses bounce back after finding a surface, which helps in differentiating between tall trees and shrubs.
Challenges phased in Usage of Drones:
- The drones have a short flight timing, between 20 minutes to an hour, which minimizes the coverage radius of the land.
- Drones with high-quality features are quite costly to be used in farms.
- They are prone to climatic conditions if it is windy or rainy outside, flying it is not possible.
- It requires internet connectivity, at times when there is a weak connection, then flying a drone is difficult.
Overcoming Challenges:
- Using GPS in drones will not need internet connectivity, and it will become easier to locate problematic areas with it.
- By reducing the weight of drones and using solar cells, the flight time of drones can be increased.
- Waterproofing will help in solving the problem of drones flying in adverse weather conditions with preheated battery backup.
IoT Devices
The IoT (Internet of Things) is a system interrelated with computing devices, mechanical and digital machines provided with Unique Identifiers(UIDs), and the ability to transfer data over a network without any human-to-computer interaction. The smart farming techniques include IoT devices, a system built for monitoring the crop fields with the help of sensors, automating the irrigation system. The farmers can monitor the field conditions from anywhere, with the IoT-based smart farming, which is highly efficient. The use of Information Technology and application of sensors, control systems, robotics, autonomous hardware, is a fundamental approach for this farm management to raise better livestock and crops.
The livestock sensor notifies the rancher about the movement of animals so that proper care can be taken. The soil sensors, alert the farmer about unpredictable conditions like high acidity in the soil, which assist them in producing better crops. Farming Equipment like tractors can be controlled remotely, providing significant savings in labour costs. The installation of the IoT devices has experienced a high growth rate in this occupation.
Impact of IoT devices, Enhancing Indian Farms:
The IoT-based mobile applications have given many benefits to farmers starting from better land management to high-quality yield. Reviewing the health of crops, daily, has become simpler and faster. A revolutionary change has come in the agricultural field, after the arrival of startups with new and innovative farming applications which comprise every tool required to assist a farmer. Companies like “Sourcetrace and Cropin” are self-evolved systems, that deliver farming solutions to the entire agriculture sector in addition to decision-making tools, data management, and prediction trends. Beforehand access to information about seed production, weather forecast, temperature, etc… is making farming much more comfortable than before. Financial lending and crop insurance are two critical sections of the applications.
Kisan Yojana, Iffco Kisan app, Agriapp are some of the Government driven applications which are useful for Indian farmers and agricultural community, which keep them updated with the latest technologies in agriculture. These apps lend a helping hand to Indian farmers and fill the information gap between the rural people and the Government with rural development.
Geographical Topography:
The IoT applications are customized with the features required for a specific type of agriculture practice. For instance, The app which is developed for crop vegetation consists of feature like the weather forecast, prediction time for seed sowing, harvesting, storing the crops, and so on. But for cattle farming the requirements are different, such as a GPS tracking system, booklet providing details about the disease of the cattle, breeding time analysis, and so on.
This is a special quality of customizing requirements in IoT devices.
The amazing feature of pop up notifications regarding important details, weather forecast, maintaining calendars, contacting the experts, giving details about ongoing prices, make this suitable for anyone to connect with it.
Challenges in Using IoT Devices:
- Smart agriculture is mainly dependent on the availability of the internet. Most of the rural parts are unable to fulfil this requirement.
- It is equipped with so many smart tools that it needs proper training and skills to be operated, which is lacking in some areas.
Overcoming the Challenge:
- To overcome the challenges mentioned above, The IoT devices will have to change in such a manner that can be easily understood by anyone and should have the option of choosing the familiar language to make learning more easier.
- There can be offline apps, that allows user to run the application regardless of connectivity, which sends and receives data in real-time.
Conclusion:
Agri-tech provides an opportunity to make modern farms and agricultural operations work far more efficiently. Primarily because of the advancement in technology, the farmers no longer have to be dependent on a middleman for creating profit. The modern techniques of robotics, information technology, sensors, GPS tracker, has brought an unexpected change in the lives of farmers. Farmers no longer have to work on watering, fertilizing the fields; instead, they can rely on Agri-tech for well-organized farming, which will provide them with a comparatively better income. The advancement in irrigation of plants, detection of disease, pest or weed, crop scouting has improvised farming techniques, and farming is also chosen as a career opportunity, which was lacking before.
In addition to it, robotic technology has enabled them with more reliable monitoring and management of natural resources such as water air and solar energy. Less runoff of chemicals into the water bodies and limited use of fertilizers and pesticides has made agriculture more organic and safe than before. Earlier, farmers used to depend on traders for borrowing money, which leads them to be in debt. But the smart farming skills are making the farmers smart too, by providing an exact amount of details about the current market rates and profits. Though there are some drawbacks to Agri-tech farming, they can overcome through small tips and tricks. Hence with great planning and working in the right direction, can lead the adoption of Agriculture Technology by the farmers, which will tremendously increase their viability and will add value to it.