Indian Farmers is benefited by Microsoft AI to increase crop yields!

Artificial Intelligence is booming exponentially and talk of the town technology since recent years. Researchers and scientists truly believe that AI would be the future technology that dominates all over the globe in all aspects of fields.

Recent technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Machine Learning, Satellite Imagery and Advanced analytics helping farmers in India to increase their income through higher crop yield and greater price control.

Few villages in Telengana, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, farmers are receiving automated voice calls that tell whether the conditions of their cotton crops are at risk of a pest attack, based on weather conditions and crop attack.

In Karnataka, the government can get price forecasts for essential commodities such as tur (split red gram) three months in advance for planning the Minimum Support Price (MSP).

Farmers are experiencing negligible loss in sowing dates based on the analyzation of the weather conditions. It results in a loss of seeds and fertilizer applications.

 The ICRISAT conducts an agricultural research for the development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world.

Microsoft has developed an AI-Sowing App powered by Microsoft Cortana Intelligence Suite including Machine Learning and Power BI in collaboration with ICRISAT.

This app sends some of the sowing advices to the farmers on the favorable dates to sow. The best part of the app is that the farmers does not need to install any sensors in their fields or obtain any capitals. All they need is a featured phone with a minimal of proper send and receive message functionalities.

To determine the favourable sowing period, the Moisture Adequacy Index (MAI) was calculated. MAI is the standardised measure used for assessing the degree of adequacy of rainfall and soil moisture to meet the potential water requirement of crops.

These data will be helpful for the farmers to pick the ideal week for sowing.

For the Kharif crop cycle, ICRISAT has scaled sowing insights to 4000 farmers across Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

As Microsoft said, the commodity prices for items such as tur, of which Karnataka is the second largest producer, will be predicted three months in advance for major markets in the state.

Microsoft has developed a multivariate agricultural commodity price forecasting model to predict future commodity arrival and the corresponding prices.

It uses remote sensing data from geostationary satellite images to predict crop yields through each and every stage of farming. It is currently being used to predict the prices of tur, scalability, time efficient and can be generalised to many other regions and crops.

Obviously it is a great initiative by the Microsoft AI to provide a technological help and assistance for the farmers to increase the yields of their crops and income.