Agri Department Appears Set for Hitech Push

Hyderabad:In a hi-tech push that has the potential to transform how Telangana farmers cope with crop losses, either due to pests or other reasons, the agriculture department is mulling widening a pilot project that provides real-time information on the stresses that plants are facing, across a wide variety of crops.

A pilot project in Dammapeta mandal in Bhadradri-Kothagudem district covering 22 villages with over 56,000 acres and more than 15,000 farmers, could well pave the way for extremely localised identification, navigating to the stressed area and providing self-diagnosis and remediation, including organic and chemical interventions, down to a nine-square metre area in a field.

“That is the area covered, 3x3 metres, by a single pixel in satellite images that read various parameters of the plants,” said Adarsh Reddy Muri, senior vice-president, technology of Krishivaas, a Hyderabad-based company offering the service. The image will help identify which corner, or which spot, in a field where plants are beginning to show signs of stress.

A senior agriculture department official said that this technology was being studied, along with another offered by Development Innovation Lab, India, which is run by a trust operated by the University of Chicago that aims to provide accurate weather forecasts directly to farmers. “This is something we hope we can put in place in the form of a full-fledged field study before this year’s Kharif crop season begins,” the official said.

This forecasting system can be drilled down to mandal- and village-level customisation. “Once the pilot study is completed, we will evaluate the results and make future plans,” the official added.

Isn’t using satellites for agriculture old hat? “What we are doing is different,” Muri explained. “Our focus is on early stress detection in a crop.” Providing accurate information to farmers on just where in the field the stress is beginning to show could help in limiting the damage.

“We have trained on 10,000 acres of paddy and maize by encouraging farmers to be a part of the exercise and found the results to be accurate. We support more than 60 different crops, including seasonal and plantation crops such as oil palm and coconut varieties,” Muri said.

The satellite-imagery based analysis of plant health can identify quickly the stress a plant faces even before a pest attack becomes visible, as was found in maize crops when the pests are invisible in the stalks, or even in the corn ears. “The associated app on a smartphone will guide the farmer to the exact location on the ground,” Muri said.

By acting early using this information, a farmer can cut down pesticide costs by up to 50 per cent, use much less of chemicals to kill the pests at the exact spot where the problem is starting, he said. “This translates into substantial savings over a year, and with improved production as pest attacks, or even water or nutrient stress related issues can be identified and addressed, as they happen.”

The agriculture department official said that such technologies could not just help farmers raising traditional seasonal crops but also those involved in horticulture, or even the increasingly popular palm oil plantations. “The government is seriously looking into these technologies to assist farmers and help them improve their harvests, cut their costs, and earn better returns,” the official said.