Every morning Indian farmer R Murali follows the same routine, opening an app on his phone to check if his pomegranate trees need water, fertiliser or at risk from pests. The 51-year-old is one of a growing number of farmers in India's vast agricultural sector turning to artificial intelligence. The country's crops are often hit by water shortage, floods or extreme weather, and the new technology offers some respite to those who can afford it.
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00:00Music
00:30The weather report gives us a lot of advantage.
00:34If we control these four stages,
00:37we can get good crops and get good yield.
00:40All this is managed by the fossil device.
00:45Farming means,
00:46how do we make a profit from the fossil when we harvest?
00:50This is 20%.
00:51So, we can make a profit of 20% from this fossil,
00:54or 20% in the market.
00:56We can make a total of 40%.
00:59Music
01:21In the early phases,
01:23we had few rejections where
01:25farmers felt that
01:27we are going to challenge their practices
01:32and their knowledge.
01:34What we have built is a technology
01:36that allows crops to talk to their farmers,
01:39which is essentially their doctors,
01:41and tell them what they are feeling.
01:42When they are feeling thirsty,
01:43so they irrigate.
01:45When they are feeling hungry,
01:46so they fertigate.
01:47And when they are feeling sick,
01:48because of change in climatic conditions,
01:50so they understand and treat them
01:52before they get more sick
01:54and they get damaged.
01:56Music
02:10So, we monitor the humidity, temperature and the sound.
02:13And, for example,
02:15if the temperature increases,
02:18it basically means there is a potential threat in the hive,
02:21because what the bees do is
02:23they create heat within the hive
02:25to ward out the intruder.
02:28So, if there is a spider or a wasp or something,
02:31so we know there is something wrong.
02:34Music
02:50If and only if this condition is satisfied,
02:54that is, the state owns the entire cost,
02:58then it's possible.
03:00If the farmer has to contribute to the cost,
03:04it's unlikely to bring it down.
03:08Music