IT APPLICATIONS IN AGRICULTURE

EMILY RENU THOMAS

1st SEM MBA (FT)

• Agriculture

• IT revolution

• IT in Agriculture– Govt. Initiatives– Technologies involved– Areas of application

• Advantages and challenges

Contents

Agriculture

• Production of food and goods • Rearing of crops and livestock • Provides livelihoods to over

70% of the Indian population • Contributes 16.6% to GDP of

India

IT revolution

• Concept of global village• Information just a click away• There is no sector that has not felt the impact

of IT revolution• Systems made more efficient• Reduced wastage of resources

IT & Agriculture

• Improving efficiency and productivity of agriculture

• Supporting & empowering farmers to make quality decisions

• Providing reliable data

• Ease in procurement of data

• Prosperity and empowerment of rural area

Information dissemination

• Awareness Databases• Decision Support Systems• Promote formation of co-operative alliances• Information on new opportunities• Monitoring systems

Govt. of India's Digital Initiatives

• Step towards “reaching” agricultural knowledge and technology to the Small Holders

• Agrisnet, Agris, Agmarknet, Dacnet, Vistarnet, Aphnet, Fishnet, Hortnet, Seednet, Ppin etc

Agmark (http://agmark.nic.in)

• Agricultural marketing information network• Project initiated under the 9th five year plan• This project has networked 735 Agricultural

Produces Wholesale Markets• Enable farmers to bargain better prices for their

produce

Dacnet (http://dacnet.nic.in)

• An e-governance portal

• Faster delivery of services

• Reduction in corruption

Seednet(http://seednet.gov.in)

• This online portal provides a large amount of seeds related information. – Type of seeds available– New GM seeds developed

Precision agriculture

• Method of agriculture which takes in to account in-field variables• Reduces wastage• Tools that assist in precision agriculture are:

- Global Positioning System (GPS) - Geographic Information Systems (GIS) & Remote Sensing- Sensors and robotics

GPS

• Accurately gives the position or location of an object, thus helps in navigation, surveying etc

• Made of three parts: – satellites orbiting the Earth– control and monitoring stations on Earth– the GPS receivers

• GPS satellites signals from space are picked up and identified by GPS receivers and gives details on location.

• GPS-based applications in precision farming are :– farm planning, field mapping, soil sampling,

– tractor guidance, yield mapping.

– to work during low visibility field conditions such as rain, dust, fog, and darkness.

– more precise application of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers

– better control of the dispersion of chemicals

• Thus reduces wastage, produce a higher yields and creates a more environmentally friendly farm.

GIS & Remote Sensing in Agriculture

• Soil Properties Sensing: Soil Texture, Structure, and Physical Condition, Soil Moisture, Soil Nutrients.

• Crop Sensing: Plant Population, Crop Stress and Nutrient Status.

• Yield Monitoring Systems: Crop Yield, Harvest, Crop Moisture

• Others: Fertilizer flow, Weed detection, Pressure sensors

Sensors and Robotics

Computerised Irrigation

• Apply water in the necessary quantity and at the right time with the help of sensors.

• How?– Measures moisture content of the soil– Compares the measured value with the

desired value– Provides water until the measured value

equals the desired value

Selective Harvesting

• Sense the quality factor before harvest • Sensors mounted ascertain the crop condition. • The selective harvester then harvests the crop

that is ready, leaving the rest to mature or ripen, without damaging them.

Robotic fruit picking

Robot that measures crop nutrient status and stress

Weeder

Robotic milking

Robotic Shearing

IT enabled weather forecasting

• Climate prediction– Rainfall– Temperature– Soil moisture– El Nino– Cyclones

• Weather monitoring software and equipments are available that can be connected to your PC.

• National Informatics Centre– www.weather.nic.in

• The National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF)

• Satellites – INSAT– Meteosat– Oceansat 2 (forecast weather, identify

potential fishing zones)

Advantages

• Ease-of-use

• Speed of information delivery

• Low incidence of errors

• More efficient methods and practices

• Globalization of agriculture

Challenges

• Agriculture is directly dependent on nature and nature is unpredictable. Hence unforeseen problems may creep in.

• Spreading awareness and educating farmers.

THANK YOU