Various Technological Innovations to reshape the Indian Agriculture

Here presents several innovative technologies to modify the Indian Agriculture:

“Farming is a Profession of Hope”

In the present era, many innovative technologies are revolutionizing the Indian agriculture. From the crop monitoring system to the imparting of chemicals by using drones and from predicting the climatic risk to agriculture to the online selling of crops from the field itself ,everything is witnessing the modernisation of Indian agriculture.

The IOT (Internet of things) and Artificial intelligence based technologies are completely changing the picture of Indian agriculture. They are emphasizing on increasing the crop yield on the particular area. They are not only increasing the farmers income but also reducing their efforts for farming.

Various companies and startups are approaching the farmers for the mission of improving their life. They are encouraging them to implement these technologies on their farms .Our government is fully supporting these startups by providing enough fund for its execution. Our PM Narendra modi mission is to doubling the farmers income by 2022.

Here we are discussing the most trending technologies in the agricultural sector:

#1  Soil moisture sensor:

This device allows the farmers to apply required water supply to their crops. It measures the volumetric water content in the soil by using other properties of the soil like electrical resistance, dielectric constant. The farmers simply have to put the rugged sensor in the soil to be tested and then it measures the moisture content in that soil.

By using Dielectric property:

This device generally measures the dielectric constant of the soil .As we know, soil dielectric property varies along with soil volumetric water content variation. In this way, this device get to know the percentage of water content in the soil.

By using Electrical resistance property:
The device allows the electric current to pass through the soil. If the current conducts properly in the soil, it means there is lack of resistance acting in the soil and the moisture level is higher. And if the current doesn't conduct properly, it means there is a lack of moisture level in the soil.

#2  Weather monitoring system:

This system predicts and limits the climatic risk to agriculture and thus reducing the losses incurred due to bad weather conditions. It allows the farmers get to know about the future weather conditions in advance .Accordingly the farmers can adopt required precautionary measures and thus reducing their losses. And based upon it, farmers can schedule their sowing, irrigation & harvesting to get the maximum yield.

Various companies like Skymet and IMD (India meteorological department) are emphasizing to avail these services to aware the farmers about the weather prediction. They gives the updated weather information on regular or weekly basis. 

A device named AWS (Automatic weather station) provides all the desired data required for precision farming. This device contains integrated  form of sensors like temperature sensor, humidity sensor, anemometer, wind direction and wind speed measurement sensor, soil temperature measurement & solar panel to produce energy to charge a battery for operating these sensors.



#3  Automation in Agriculture:

After facing the problems of labor shortages and expensive labor, farmers are switching their traditional farming methods to advanced and automated methods. This proves to be an icing on the cake for the farmers, as it not only reducing their efforts in farming but also increasing their crop yields.

Application of Drones in agriculture is expanding day by day. They are used for several tasks nowadays.

Crop spraying:

Drones are offering to automate crop spraying task. It sprays the liquid pesticides, herbicides to the crops by using the GPS and ultrasonic positioning techniques.

Planting of crop:

The drones are being built for seeding & planting to reduce the use of manual labor. This system have achieved an uptake rate of 75 percent and decrease planting costs by 85 percent. 

Field analysis:

Drones are being used for the seed planting patterns and later they are used for irrigation management.

#4  Satellite crop monitoring system:

This system allows the farmers to get the satellite images of the fields and farms so they can monitor their fields and determine the positive or negative growth of crops yield. They can also monitor the crops in other fields and accordingly they can scheduled their crop management processes.

This system is extremely useful for the business owners, agriculture machinery producing companies, investors, agronomist. Various food companies monitors the crop growth by using this technology and planning for the crop procurement accordingly. Some investors analyse the crop yielding structure and target their dream land. Early yield information helps to develop proper marketing structure.

By using the satellite images allows the farmers get an opportunity to observe fields in a real time basis. Farmers can also generate database for future reference regarding the soil temperature and changes in its rainfall, vegetation indexes for various crops, with a time horizon of more than 12 years.

To get the maximum benefits from crop monitoring system, farmers, managers must be able to interpret the image. There are a wide range of enhancement tools available which can help make an image more interpretable for specific applications. These tools are often used to highlight features. The techniques adopted will depend on the type of remote sensed data as well as the objectives of the user.

 #5  Aquaculture ponds monitoring:

This technology allows farmers to monitor aquaculture ponds and helps them to maintain the water quality. The company "Eruvaka technology" is working upon this field. They develops solar-powered flouting buoys that measure different water parameters, such as oxygen levels, temperature and pH range.

They allow farmers to monitor their pond data from their smart-phones. And the real time voice alerts are sent to the farmer's mobile when there is drop in water quality so as to reduces the risk of shrimp mortality and increasing the quality of the produce.
Real time monitoring of ponds with intelligent control of aerators and feeders reduces production costs and increases yield and make it sustainable. Significantly reduces the risk for farmers and help them to increase productivity.