Farmer Centric Transformation using Digital Agriculture Technologies$

Abstract

The science of Digital Agriculture has been gaining prominence with the advent of fast-paced progress in technologies that can impact last-mile delivery to smallholder farmers. Digital Agriculture offers a wide range of technology solutions such as smart farming with IoTs, data-driven agronomy and extension systems, market access and financial services. ICRISAT has pioneered research and development in digital 
agriculture area in early 2016, which was institutionalized through Agri-Tech start up environment at the Innovations Hub (iHub) in Hyderabad.  Digital application ‘Plantix’, an android based smart phone app is backed by AI and has become the largest agricultural application around the globe. With more than 40 million smallholder farmers, Plantix detects 600 pests and diseases in 35 crops. An inspire challenge award led to the development of a rapid low cost aflatoxin detection using non-destructive techniques (UV spectrum). An innovative proof of concept to predict yields in Sorghum using smart phone images (2D to 3D point cloud transformation method)  was successfully demonstrated. Big data analytics using open source data made crop monitoring possible through GEE platform.  Technologies are decisive to state affecting change in agricultural development and digital agriculture technologies play a significant game changing role in boosting productivity and enhancing climate change resilience. Harvesting innovations and enabling partnerships will help in Farmer Centric Digital 
Transformation. There is future potential for Digital technologies to play a significant role in the evolution of digital public infrastructure.