Students of IIT Guwahati and alumni of NIT Silchar and Dibrugarh Universities in Assam have developed AgSpeak, a multi-lingual smartphone application for farmers to manage their crops.
The agri-tech start-up which is free for small farmers has been developed with the goal of optimising in-farm productivity through Artificial Intelligence (AI), this application will help the farmers in making decisions and managing farm activities by the click of a single button on their smartphone or computer, IIT Guwahati said in a statement.
Driven by hyper local crop data from satellite and smart loT devices, AgSpeak considers up to 20 local crop parameters which are key indicators of their health like temperature, rainfall, sunlight hours, soil health status, among others, to alert farmers about probable crop threats in advance and suggest best practices to tackle the problems, hence optimising the resources used and maximising productivity.
‘AgSpeak’ is multi-lingual and has an option of Assamese as well. This feature is a first among all the agri-tech applications available in the market, the release said.
The app along with the Internet of Things (IOT) hardware has been tested for the past three months with 500 farmers and two tea estates. Some of the major breakthroughs were precise prediction about blights in potoatoes, tea mosquito bug along with water stress in winter crops which are a major concern for farmers and can cause major crop damages, if not controlled in time.
Nearly 250 farmers have already been provided hands on training in utilising the full potential of the app and its user friendliness and multilingual features make it extremely easy for farmers to use and seldom require training.
Co-founded by Siddhartha Bora (NIT Silchar alumnus), Manik Mittal (IIT Guwahati student), Akash Sharma (IIT Guwahati student), Nitin Chauhan (IIT Guwahati student), Dhritiman Talukdar (NIT Silchar alumnus), and Kookil Pran Goswami (Dibrugarh University alumnus), AgSpert is leading the initiative in north-eastern India which has untapped potential with diverse ecosystems having agriculture as the major economic activity.
This feature is a first among all the agri-tech applications available on the market, the press release said.
Major commercial users of the product include commercial plantation farms (tea gardens, lemon orchards and grape vineyards).
The mobile app is free for general small farmers. There are in-app purchases like soil testing and agri-doctor consultation. Besides, the IOT devices can be rented on monthly /yearly basis by commercial farms to further enhance precision farm management. The app has been tested with many farmers and its practical utility established.
The app was launched by IIT-G Director Prof TG Sitharam on December 13.
Sitharam said, “It is a matter of immense pride that “our students are working to bring out a state-of-the-art technology for India’s farmers.”
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