Farmers get an intelligent friend

ITC's KRISHI MITRA OFFERS TAILORED INSIGHTS AND ADVICE FOR VARIOUS CROPS AND FARMING PRACTICES

- SUDHIR CHOWDHARY

THERE'S A QUIET revolution taking place in agriculture fields in India—one not driven by tractors or tillers, but by AI and machine learning. The change agent is Krishi Mitra, a GenAI-powered voice assistant and the latest innovation in ITC's smart agriculture programme (ITC-MAARS); it is improving livelihoods for farmers by providing personalized agricultural advice and information. What makes it unique is its ability to understand and respond to farmers' queries in voice and regional languages using Microsoft's voice-to-text technology. Farmers simply ask their questions and Krishi Mitra generates helpful responses. It's like having an intelligent friend.

"Krishi Mitra uses advanced voice-to-text and natural language processing and ITCMAARS agri databases to interact with farmers, offering real-time, personalized guidance directly through a smartphone," S Ganesh Kumar, divisional chief executive, Agri Business, ITC, told FE. Farmers can ask questions in their local language, and the chatbot responds with clear, actionable insights, tailored to the user's location and crop type, he added.