Employed AI in agriculture sector to help farmers: Centre

The Government provides financial assistance at 55% for small and marginal farmers and at 45% for other farmers for installation of Drip and Sprinkler systems under the PDMC.

New Delhi: The Centre has said that it has employed Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods to address various challenges in the agricultural sector to aid farmers.

It deployed ‘Kisan e-Mitra’ an AI-powered chatbot to assist farmers with queries about the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme. This solution supports multiple languages and is evolving to assist other government programmes, Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Ram Nath Thakur said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

The government has also adopted the National Pest Surveillance System for tackling the loss of produce due to climate change. This system utilizes AI and Machine Learning to detect crop issues, enabling timely intervention for healthier crops. AI-based analytics are using field photographs for crop health assessment and monitoring using satellites, weather, and soil moisture datasets for rice and wheat crop, he said.

Besides, the Government was implementing a Centrally-Sponsored Scheme of Per Drop More Crop (PDMC) in the country from 2015-16. PDMC focuses on enhancing water use efficiency at farm level through Micro Irrigation, namely Drip and Sprinkler Irrigation Systems. The Micro Irrigation helps in saving water as well as reducing fertilizer usage through fertigation, labour expenses, other input costs, and overall income enhancement of farmers, he said.

The Government provides financial assistance at 55 per cent for small and marginal farmers and at 45 per cent for other farmers for installation of Drip and Sprinkler systems under the PDMC.

Additionally, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has also developed an IoT based irrigation system and tested it in the field for selected crops, he said.