Digital Frontiers In Farming

Banking Frontiers, in association with The Weather Company, an IBM Business, organized a roundtable conference in Chennai to discuss the role of technology in the agriculture ecosystem.

The digital wave has enormously transformed all businesses and the agricultural sector is no different.

The prediction about returns from the sector gets the highest level of accuracy when mediums like satellites, drones, mobile devices, fuel pumps, commodity markets, exchanges etc are used. Farmers can use these key information factors and then determine the success or failure of the crops. They can thus reduce risks and maximize returns.

Industry experts as well as officials from state governments, NABARD, financial institutions and weather prediction companies, who participated in the roundtable, share their perspectives on the current scenario and future of agriculture eco system.

P Venkatachalapathy, State Nodal Officer, National eGovernance Plan for Agriculture (NeGP-A)

Rice is the predominant crop in Tamil Nadu. The farmers are cultivating rice in 20 lakh hectares while the rest of the farm area is covered by 126 horticulture crops and other crops. In north India, there is kharif and rabbi seasons, but south India has 3 types seasons for crop cultivation April to July, September to December and January to April. The south-west monsoon is there from June to September in which average rainfall is 921 mm, while the southeast monsoon provides 38% of the rainfall. Rain-deficit farmers are poor and they mainly depend on the rainfall pattern. They thus need highly accurate weather forecasts. They also need technology assistance and financial assistance as well.