Crop Analytics Promises Delight for Farms and Farmers

Today, the wave of digital transformation is buffeting the shore of almost every sector. Agriculture is no exception. The landscape of farming is veering to 'digital agriculture, which is about sourcing and leveraging the correct data and building insights out of it for transformative outcomes. Digital agriculture is characterized by the confluence of different agriculture technologies (also called AgriTech) like robotics, drone technology, weather monitoring via satellite imagery and precision application of water and chemicals. Since data is central to changing the culture of agriculture, the farms and farmers will need Smart sensors, satellite imagery, and other cloud-based technologies for recording data during crop planting, harvesting, maximizing production output, and checking the anomalies on the ground. The use of these smart technologies in tandem has given rise to ‘connected agriculture’, the market for which is expected to grow by $3.61 billion from 2021 to 2026.

 

Lack of Ground Truth Data- Why Digital Integration Alone Won’t Suffice

The lack of accurate and timely ground-level data on crop yield, which is a barometer of crop harvest, can contribute to an agrarian crisis. The conventional methods of data capture lean heavily on averaging and approximation, leading to poor estimation, false representation and inaccuracy of crop yield. The next worry for farmers and other stakeholders is the post-harvest challenge of procurement.

Many governments have digitized the farm-to-fork chain, creating farm registries and integrating them with the land records database to ensure the benefits go to authentic farmers. However, this digital integration has not proved to be a cure-all.

To illustrate, the actual status of land may not be similar to what is registered on papers. A patch of forest land can be registered as farmland. This data mismatch gives the scope for traders and intermediaries to manipulate data and avail the benefits of the MSP (Minimum Support Price) regime, which ought to have gone to farmers. Picture the scene of Indian agriculture- a sector that supports the livelihoods of 60 per cent of the population has 82 per cent small or marginalized farmers with limited access to high-end technology.

An essential step towards improving agricultural production and systemic resilience is the widespread use of more accurate, timely and applicable crop analytics. It enables farmers to make prudent farm management decisions. It can also form the foundational premise for governments to craft better and outcome centric policies, targeting the intended beneficiaries.