Reshaping Agriculture With AI, Drones & Biologicals

The global sustainable agriculture market is on a trajectory to reach over 31.35 billion by 2031, exhibiting a robust compound annual growth rate CAGR) of 10.17 per cent from 2023 to 2031. India has a major role in this transformative journey, where sustainable farming is emerging not just as a necessity but as an economically viable, socially supportive, and ecologically sound approach to crop cultivation. This transformation has been enabled over the past year by a synergy between government support, the complementary development of cutting-edge technologies by industry and a proactive push from the corporate sector. To explore the milestones in the growth of the sustainable agriculture market in India, the theme of the AgroSpectrum cover story is Sustainable Agriculture, which is consistent with the outline set by 14th Agrovision i.e. Sustainable Farming through Skilling and Technology”. In our special Dec 23 issue, AgroSpectrum delves deep into the realm of growing sustainable farming technologies through a series of analytical and informative articles on advancements in sustainable agriculture.

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On November 6, the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW) in collaboration with Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Wadhwani AI) launched Krishi 24/7, the first-ever AI-powered solution for automated agricultural news monitoring and analysis, with support from Google.org. Krishi 24/7 will aid DA&FW to identify relevant news, generate timely alerts, and take prompt action to protect farmers' interests and promote sustainable agricultural growth through improved decision-making.

The introduction of Krishi 24/7 addresses the need for an efficient mechanism to identify and manage agricultural news articles of interest to aid timely decision-making. The tool scans news articles in multiple languages and translates them into English. It extracts essential information from news articles, such as headline, crop name, event type, date, location, severity, summary, and source link, ensuring that the ministry receives timely updates on relevant events published on the web.

Wadhwani AI noted that it wants to build AI solutions for existing challenges where news monitoring and validation have been manual and time-consuming. A similar event tracking and analysis solution for disease outbreaks has been successfully deployed by the institute with the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). By collaborating with the DA&FW and other central government bodies, it is dedicated to equipping the farmers with effective tools that improve the information flow through enhanced data-driven decisions.