Mumbai, August 21 (IANS). Taking a major step towards incorporating modern technology in farming, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday directed the agriculture department to implement a pilot project on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and 'digital twin learning' across the state.
The aim of this initiative is to increase crop production by using advanced tools like satellite technology, drones, IoT sensors and data analytics. In its initial phase, 10,000 farmers will be selected for the trial.
This decision was taken during a presentation on AI and Digital Twin Learning Project held here. The main crops that will be focused on in this phase include cotton, soybean, pigeon pea (tur), sugarcane, orange, turmeric, onion and maize.
Speaking at the meeting, CM Fadnavis said that the Agricultural Development Trust of Baramati has started this initiative to tackle the problems like climate change, water scarcity, decreasing fertility of soil and increasing production cost.
He stressed on creating a unified digital system by collecting data from different sources to crop growth, water requirement, soil moisture, weather conditions and pest attacks.
The Chief Minister said that by analyzing this data through machine learning, the state will be able to give specific advice to the crop to every farmer, which will reduce the input cost and increase the total income from farming.
State Agriculture Minister Dattatreya Bharne said that AI-based farming is a priority of the state government and he is confident that this project will bring revolutionary changes in the agriculture sector of Maharashtra.
Sakal Media Group Chairman Pratap Pawar appreciated the support of the state government and said that the state's support is necessary to implement such effective development initiatives on a large scale.
Agricultural Development Trust CEO Nilesh Nalawade presented the results of the pilot project. Very good results were obtained in the initial trials on sugarcane cultivation.
He said that the average production increased from 65.45 tonnes per acre to 73.12 tonnes per acre, i.e. an average increase of 17.66 tonnes per acre.
He said, “AI-based irrigation management resulted in an average water saving of 42 per cent, which could save around 90,000 liters of water per hectare every day. By analyzing the images taken from drones through AI, crop diseases can be detected early and important information to irrigation and spraying can be sent directly to the farmers' mobile phones.”
According to the government statement, the initial trial has given good results to more than 10,000 farmers, so the state government is planning to evaluate the performance of this model according to the area and crop before implementing it in the entire state.
–IANS
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