AI Innovations Transforming Indian Agriculture for Better Yields

Enhancing Agriculture with Artificial Intelligence

New Delhi, Dec 6: The Indian government is leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to boost agricultural productivity, enhance sustainability, and improve the livelihoods of farmers while tackling various challenges in the sector.

As part of this initiative, a pilot project utilizing AI was launched in partnership with the Development Innovation Lab-India, focusing on local monsoon onset forecasts relevant to agriculture across 13 states for the Kharif season of 2025.

Ramnath Thakur, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, stated that an open-source blended model was employed, incorporating NeuralGCM, the Artificial Intelligence Forecasting System (AIFS) from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), along with 125 years of historical rainfall data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

The probabilistic forecasts specifically predicted the local onset of the monsoon, which is crucial for determining the sowing dates for crops, as mentioned by the minister in a written response to the Rajya Sabha.

These local forecasts were communicated via SMS through the M-Kisan portal to over 38 million farmers across 13 states in five regional languages: Hindi, Odia, Marathi, Bangla, and Punjabi.

Following the forecasts, telephonic feedback surveys were conducted in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar through Kisan Call Centres.

The results indicated that 31% to 52% of farmers modified their planting strategies, primarily adjusting land preparation and sowing timings, which included choices regarding crops and inputs.

Additionally, the 'Kisan e-Mitra' is a voice-activated AI chatbot designed to assist farmers by answering queries related to the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme, PM Fasal Bima Yojna, and Kisan Credit Card.

This tool supports 11 regional languages and is being developed to provide assistance for other government initiatives.

Currently, it addresses over 8,000 farmer inquiries daily, having resolved more than 9.3 million queries to date, according to the minister.

Furthermore, the National Pest Surveillance System employs AI and Machine Learning to identify pest infestations in crops, facilitating timely interventions for healthier yields.

This AI tool, utilized by more than 10,000 extension workers, enables farmers to take pictures of pests, aiding in the mitigation of pest attacks and minimizing crop losses.

It covers 66 different crops and over 432 pest types. AI-driven analytics using field images for satellite-based crop mapping is also being applied in monitoring crop-weather matching for sown crops.