Vodafone Idea Ltd’s (Vi) corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm has partnered with Finnish telecom equipment maker, Nokia to deploy smart agriculture solution in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra that would improve productivity and income of farmers.
The pilot project of Vodafone India Foundation and Nokia will be implemented across 100 locations in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra to benefit more than 50,000 farmers.
“The SmartAgri project aims to enhance the livelihoods of small farmers through sustainable farming approaches, deployment of IoT (internet of things) solutions and by improving their access to information, using technology,” the telecom operator said on Monday.
While Nokia will provide its Worldwide IoT Network Grid (Wing) solution, Solidaridad has been signed up for field implementation.
As part of the project, over 400 sensors have been deployed across 100,000 hectares of farmland in the two states to collect data points, which are analysed by a cloud-based and localized smart agriculture application. “The app provides local language support as well as weather forecast and irrigation management information,” Vodafone Idea said.
The sensors generate insights to help improve soy and cotton crop yields. Farmers can also get data on smart irrigation, smart pesticide control, and proactive information on crops and weather forecast. They will also get a platform for commodity exchange on Wing.
“The use case can also employ Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) technology or drones instead of traditional sensors for crop management,” the telco said.
“Smart crop management using smart IoT and AI (artificial intelligence)-based solutions is transforming the prevalent agricultural practices into more ‘intelligent’ ones enabling farmers with smart decision making,” said P Balaji, chief regulatory and corporate affairs officer, Vi.
Started with 50,000 farmers, the smart agriculture solution will be rolled out across India gradually, said Ankur Bhan, head of Nokia Wing Business.