Context: Recently Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare has given information about various activities by government in the agriculture sector through Internet of things and Artificial Intelligence.

Government activities 

Centres of Excellence on Internet of Things

• It is under Digital India initiative by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology along with NASSCOM and state governments.

• It will be established at Bengaluru, Gurugram, Gandhi Nagar and Visakhapatnam.

• Objective: to enable India to emerge as an innovation hub in IoT through democratization of innovation and realization of prototypes.

• IoT at Visakhapatnam will focus on Agri-Tech.

• It will connect various entities such as startups, enterprises, venture capitalists, government and academia.

National e-Governance Plan in Agriculture (NeGPA)

• It is program by Department of Agriculture & Farmers welfare.

• Under this, funding is given to State Governments for Digital Agriculture projects like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML), Internet of Things (IOT), Block chain etc.

Innovation and Agri-Entrepreneurship Development

• It is operational under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) since 2018-19.

• Objective: To promote innovation and agripreneurship by providing financial support and nurturing the incubation ecosystem.

• Startups related to agriculture and allied sectors are being encouraged to enhance income of farmers by providing opportunity and employment to youth.

• 5 Knowledge Partners (KPs) and 24 Agribusiness Incubators (R-ABIs) have been appointed.

National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (NM-ICPS)

• It is implemented by Department of Science & Technology.

• Under this, 25 Technology Innovation Hubs (TIHs) have been set up in premier institutes of national importance.

• Three TIHs are involved in the applications of Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Agriculture.

• Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Ropar: Technology and Innovation Foundation is set up at IIT Ropar.

• It is in technology vertical of "Technologies for Agriculture and Water".

• Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay: Technology Innovation Hubs (TIHs) foundation of IOT and Internet of Everything (IoE) has been set up in IIT Bombay.

• It is for vertical of "Technologies for Internet of Things and Internet for Everything".

Technology Innovation Hubs (TIHs)

• It is executing a project of effective and efficient agriculture technology, which aims to develop an end-to-end solution for Agriculture Technology (Agri Tech) to predict crop production in the season.

EAgriS is an IoT-based platform developed for this purpose

• It focuses on Aerial Robotics for Soil Parameters Monitoring, Drone based Imaging and Drone based spraying.

• It will develop a predictive data analysis model to make intelligent decisions based on ambient conditions (temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction rainfall), soil parameters (moisture, temperature, electrical conductivity, pH, NPK, Sulphur) and leaf wetness for application of AI in Precision Agriculture.

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur

• AI4ICPS Foundation is set up in IIT Kharagpur.

• It is in vertical of "Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning".

• AI4ICPS Foundation: It is developing AI based technologies for Precision Agriculture, Predictive and Forecasting models using AI for Crop Health Monitoring and Soil health Monitoring.

Applications of AI and IoT in Agriculture

Crop Yield prediction and price forecast

• It can help farmers to identify yield and price forecast of next few weeks whch can help farmers to obtain maximum profit.

Intelligent spraying

• AI can detect weed and use precise required herbicide on that area so usage of herbicide will be marginally reduced.

Agricultural robots

• It can be used to harvest huge volume of crops at faster pace.

Crop and soil monitoring

• It can monitor soil health by diagnosing pests, defects, nutrients deficiencies etc.

Field Monitoring

• It can be done by using drones to surveillance the field.

Predictive insight

• It can predict the right time for sowing or harvesting for maximum production.

• It can show impact created by weather condition.