Deployed solution 2: SmartFarm Farm Management Software
Deployer: Bangalore-based CropIn Technology
Usefulness of the solution
SmartFarm (a mobile and web application) makes it possible to manage all aspects of farming right from pre-sowing till the post-harvest season.
SmartFarm is also relatively easy for farmers to use, as the solution offers real-time data driven inputs along with a host of best farming practices with which informed decisions can be taken and the overall productivity improved.
SmartFarm captures data at all levels, and provides refined analytics to farmers along with visual representations of these for easy understanding.
Another target area of SmartFarm application suite, is businesses for whom agriculture and farming operations is an area of priority.
How SmartFarm works?
Basically, Smart Farm is integrated with data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI); these identify various farm areas (intended to be monitored by the client) and analyse these by characterising into high risk and low risk zones. In these regions, specific aspects such as crop health, extent of crop damage (if any), along with the estimation in yield are generated.
Information thus generated above are passed through CropIn’s proprietary Crop models and various customised algorithms to predict the yield of crop along with detecting the type of crop suitable for cultivation at a particular piece of land.
“This technology also analyses billions of live farm pixels (10×10 Mt. resolution every 10 days) along with parameters like weather, soil, NDVI, LAI, Chlorophyll, and more.”, states Krishna Kumar – CEO at CropIn Technologies.
Also, SmartFarm uses popular technological aspects like satellites and remote sensing along with leveraging AI and machine learning as stated above.
Real-time deployment of SmartFarm
SmartFarm software are being used by Sahyadri Farmers (registered in the state of Maharashtra) who fall into the category of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) identified by the Government of India as ‘Marginal Farmers’ with land possession being less than 1 hectare.
Now, Sahydari Farmers consist of individual farmers numbering more than 1000 . Folks at CropIn Technologies claimed to have deployed SmartFarm to mitigate plaguing issues such as compliance, traceability, and quality control. These parameters are defined by exporters who have formulated stringent norms.
With SmartFarm, purchasers can even verify authenticity of the produce sold to them through Sahyadri Farmers; produce in this case are grapes grown by farmers.
Other farmer-centric deployments of SmartFarm have witnessed results wherein customers responded to having observed an increase of nearly 12% in the overall crop yield. There have been instances where effective deployments have led to reduction in crop losses due to pest interference. Savings were reported to be nearly 80% in this regard.