Farming, oft perceived as the polar opposite of modern digital technology, is now finding itself in a unique arranged marriage with big data. The offspring of this marriage are productivity, savings and a more prosperous farming season, despite the unpredictable and treacherous Indian monsoon. Leading the new agrarian solutions business are Indian start ups, a ubiquitous modern saviour.
India, a country of approximately 1.27 billion people, depends on agriculture, which is its largest industry, for its daily bread, quite literally. The past few years of an extremely undependable mon-soon season, with the global climate change affecting weather patterns and rain, have spelled doom for farmers at such a grave level, that many farmer suicides have been reported by the Indi-an and international media on a yearly basis.
1,109 deaths were reported in India in 2014. With no international comparison of this kind of death rate in the agrarian community, anywhere in the world in recent times, it became the responsibility of the government to provide rescue and succour. However that notion was of poor comfort to a community of many illiterate farming villages who had never really received any attention from their respective local governments, especially during the last few years, to help them battle the drought-prone conditions or flood ravages. A study conducted by Cambridge University in 2014 highlighted the risk factors that led to increased farmer suicides in India. Farmers that grow cash crops such as coffee and cotton, farmers with marginal farms of less than one hectare and farmers with debts of Rs 300 (or approximately USD 5)were determined as the three groups most susceptible to sui-cide.
Charging to the rescue for over 5 years now, have been technological well-wishers who have com-bined their knowledge, network and funding to create programmes and develop digitised equip-ment that directly addresses issues related to saving water, better distribution of agrarian re-sources and proper food storage.
For example, Bangalore-based FlyBird Innovation helps coconut farmers to reduce their water wastage by up to 40%. Coconuts are notorious water guzzlers and many farmers admit to using 1000 litres of water, instead of the 100 litres required, due to poor monitoring abilities affecting the supply and release of water into the coconut farms. This start up firm’s solution for precise irriga-tion not only allows the farmer to redirect and use the saved water for other crops, but also in-creases crop yield and gives farmers higher returns by 10 - 15%. And what’s more, is its attractive affordability. Priced between Rs 16,000 and Rs. 28,000 (or approximately USD 250 and USD 440) this technology costs about a third of the US and Israeli products in the market.
Charging to the rescue for over 5 years now, have been technological well-wishers who have combined their knowledge, network and funding to create programmes and develop digitised equipment that directly addresses issues related to saving water, better distribution of agrarian resources and proper food storage.
Skymet Weather Services is another technological advancement for farmers that brings better forecasts, combining historical data and high speed computing. This has resulted in far better pre-dictions of actual rainfall than the woe-ridden Indian Meteorological Department’s predictions.
A very serious threat to a good crop yield is pestilence. Barrix, another Bangalore-based firm has developed pest control traps that are pheromone-based and utilise sticky sheets. Commercial pes-ticides are expensive and don’t quite do the trick, as pests have become resistant to them. Barrix has done a far better job in aiding crop protection and has been sold across 16 farming states in India.
In a particularly afflicted state like Maharashtra, with Pune and its surrounding hamlets deeply en-trenched in agriculture, a third of the vegetables and fruits are wasted due to spoilage. To avoid this, there are start ups providing proper storage access. Ecozen, ColdStar, Promethean and Coolify are some of these who use solar power and thermal storage as the energy back up. This provides a storage solution, so that the farmer can avoid selling his produce at absolutely throwa-way prices to prevent spoilage. Although it’s a bit of an investment, proponents believe this is a great long-term solution for farmers and will be worth the purchase within three years.
Power fluctuations are common in India, especially rural India where farms rely on electricity for their water pumps. Kisanraja is an innovative box shaped device that is remote controlled by a mobile phone with a functional SIM card. That’s the simple model, whereas advanced models also provide information about water levels in the borewell or if someone is trying to forcibly remove the device from its installed place.
With the agricultural revolution forging new paths, thanks to techno-savvy true citizens who are leading the way towards safeguarding the farmers’ interests, it seems major companies are also finding new leadership roles in the world of agrarian netizens. IFFCO, Mahindra and ITC are ex-amples of large conglomerates who are partnering with startups in India to raise the standard of farming as well as providing much-needed private sector leadership towards prosperity and a big-ger bread basket for India’s table.