AgriTech to Drive Resilient Agriculture and Empower Smallholder farmers

With the advent of the Green revolution, there has been intensive use of agricultural technology. Efficient farms and adoption of traditional best farming practices, have raised the bar and propelled the growth of agriculture in India. However, agriculture today faces the new challenges of climate change, exploding population, water scarcity and lack of traceability. There then arises a need for agri-innovation, which can be used for uniform and instantaneous dissemination of knowledge and integration of all stakeholders and processes to ensure better monitoring and traceability.

Big data can be leveraged in a multitude of ways including the formulation of robust and scalable policies, processes and systems, the ease and convenience of real time governance, monitoring, controlling and optimization.

We at CropIn aspire to create a digital ecosystem that provides services to all the farmers and constituents of the agriculture sector. Covering the entire agricultural life cycle we aim to aid and support the goal of- doubling farmer’s income and enhancing GDP of the agriculture sector by providing new impetus in the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals. With a commitment to quality we also pay special focus on engineering a watertight value chain to ensure highest product quality, transparency and convenience of monitoring for optimal efficiency.

CropIn’s solutions are being used and trusted by a number of clients globally, with a score of 92 % on adaptability and a 98% client retention rate, our solution has helped mitigate risk, increase income, foster a symbiotic & sustainable relationship between farmer and environment.

How CropIn impacted Asian smallholder farmers

“Large-scale pilots are being digitised in four districts of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh to test the effectiveness of digital apps to generate climate resilient solutions.There is a demand and need to develop resilience in agriculture, to safeguard agaisnt regular weather shocks in the short-term and catastrophic climate change in the long. The global climate crisis is one of the biggest challenges facing Indian farmers today,” said a World Bank expert.

In less than a month, Pratima Devi completes a visit to all the farm plots in her village that are registered to get agro-advisories. “Women farmers appreciate my efforts and have started trusting my advice because they see a positive difference on their farms,” she adds.

The challenges faced by the smallholder farmers and how to face them

Many farmers in rural India lack the means to comply with metrics mandated by the sector, as a result, either obtain a poor yield or are unable to sell their produce due to not meeting the minimum required standards. This coupled with an erratic climate threatens millions of smallholder farmers in the Central Indian States of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, there then arises a need to leverage digital technology to empower farmers to obtain better results, enable them to climb out of poverty and maintain a sustainable livelihood for the years to come.

So what’s the solution?

Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (SLACC) Project associated with the Government of India’s National Rural Livelihoods Project (NRLP) is an initiative made possible through a public-private partnership between the State Rural Livelihood Missions in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh with CropIn. These pioneering digital tools are being developed and utilized as a part of both SLACC and NRLP, which are supported by the World Bank. Funded by the Special Climate Change Fund under the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the SLACC project aims to empower at least 10,000 farmers to adopt climate-resilient practices.

In order to effectively track and monitor farmer progress, there needs to be a foolproof mechanism that alerts and informs stakeholders at every level of the agri-ecosystem. CropIn’s SmartFarm® is a state-of-the-art farm management solution, the solution enables farmers to capture several parameters through every stage of production and monitor them systematically to increase productivity at every stage of production.

Increase efficiency and strengthen sustainability by obtaining periodic and valuable insights on crop health, pest infestation, crop growth and output predictability with our cutting edge algorithms, establish a data driven practice to make the best possible decision and procure only the highest quality crop. CropIn has successfully digitized over 6.1 million acres of farms, can detect and monitor over 388 crops and 9400 crop varieties. Our solutions are location agnostic and have been used in over 52 countries, across diverse terrains and geographies. With a client retention rate of 98%, CropIn has met and exceeded expectations of 225 clients around the world.

90,000 farm plots in SLACC areas in both states will be audited and tracked across the Kharif and rabi seasons for the major crops. Overall, NRLP is being implemented in 13 states of India and has reached 7 million households. Over 500 community professionals and other functionaries have been systematically trained by CropIn on farmer data digitization, crop advisories and timely activity updates, weather advisories, farm area auditing, geo-tagging and crop health monitoring. These community professionals will serve as change agents to scale up the digital interventions in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, and possibly to other states under the NRLP.

CropIn has developed a climate-smart advisory module that develops season-wise crop configurations for all the major crops and provides a weather-based advisory to SLACC farmers in the local Hindi language on predictive and curative measures promoting sustainable agriculture practices. Tracking farming activities has never been easier, with better end-to-end visibility and an easy-to-use mobile application, farm extension workers can maintain better efficiency, transparency and alert stakeholders in the case of pest infestation or disease.

Web- and mobile-based advisory dashboards have been developed to enable the Village Resource Professionals to get important insights around sowing, soil health, seed treatment, recommendations for harvesting fertilizer, and seven-day weather forecasts derived from the best available weather observation systems and forecast models. This data is then downscaled at the farm plot level to help smallholder farmers make effective decisions for their crops. The module also considers technical inputs in real-time from agriculture experts in state research institutions and farm alerts from village resource professionals to develop these practical agro-advisories.

CropIn, a private software and mobile apps company, has developed digital applications to advise farmers on ways to achieve optimal harvests, depending on weather conditions, soil and other indicators.

Earlier farmers relied on traditional wisdom alone, but now digital information can help them make faster and better decisions on the times of sowing and harvesting.

Leveraging satellite imaging technology has become paramount for food processing companies around the world today.

• With the right type of data intelligence monitoring to track the performance of every farmer & plot for the last 3 years.
• Identify the primary and secondary crops being grown in a given region. Receive complete visibility of crops grown & estimated yield — logistics for planning a procurement strategy.

After using CropIn’s digital platform, a village resource professional was able to raise a number of alerts in Bihar and received many advisories from CropIn on sowing, soil health, seed treatment, and weather forecasts that benefited farmers. Over time, he developed skills to interpret technical advisories, train farmers to apply information on their fields, and interact with CropIn professionals, which earned him the status of a master trainer.

CropIn has partnered with Government and Development Agencies like the World Bank and Governments of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar in the aforementioned ‘SLAAC project’, for better Climate Change Adaptation.

Tata Trusts’ CInI (Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives) has leveraged CropIn’s SmartFarm® to digitize and make agricultural practice more efficient for its ambitious ‘Mission 2020: Lakhpati Kisan Program’, that aims to bring 101,000 households irreversibly out of poverty across the Indian states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jharkhand and Odisha.

Similarly, our solutions have been utilized by the Rainforest Alliance in Africa to bolster the economic growth of farmers. Mozambique’s Cashew Promotion Institute (INCAJU) Mozacaju — utilizing SmartFarm® to digitize cashew production for better socioeconomic growth of smallholder farmers in the country, by providing end-to-end traceability and ensuring superior quality output at the time of harvest. The Vodafone Foundation in India helped in the rural upliftment and woman empowerment by streamlining agricultural processes and providing farmers with the best package of practices that enabled them to avoid crop loss and increase high-quality yield.

Discover More: How CropIn has impacted smallholder farmers in tribal households.

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Originally published at www.cropin.com.