Conference Report 2
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.
Tamil Nadu has 7.9 million farmers, 7.3 million of them small and marginal farmers having below 5 hectares of land. During the April to July season the state has more rice
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.
production because during this period crops get good sunlight. In 2011-12 computer generated methodology was introduced for farm crop management for which a farmer database was created containing personal contact details, land details and other cultivation details. The state has 12,600 fertilizer dealers, 8700 seed dealers and 8080 computerised and online government seed distribution depots.
We have tie-up with Tamil Nadu eGovernance agency and have developed a mobile app, ‘Ulavar’ which means farmer in Tamil. Around 4.5 lakh farmers have downloaded this app and are effectively using it. The app provides real time information about seed availability at the private and government outlets. We have also made interface with the ministry of fertilizers. If a farmer wants details of the nearby retail fertilizer shop, all the contact details are available in the app. We have covered 5.2 million farmers in the last 3 years in PMFBY scheme and we have dispersed around Rs503 billion through this scheme. The farmers are coming forward to take this scheme. We are advising all the financial institutions to guide farmers about crop insurance.
We are also i mplementing t he government of India’s innovative schemes like the micro- irrigation schemes. We give 100% assistance to all the farmers. Of the 7.9 million farmers in the state, we have covered 30% and remaining will be covered in the next year
In 2018, the collective f arming scheme has been introduced by the Tamil Nadu government. NABARD’s Rural Infrastructure Development Fund, which has been not utilized properly, can actually lead to the uplift of the farmers.
Sreepathy S, DGM, NABARD
NABARD is financing rural infrastructure. We are sanctioning the proposals that come from the state government. There is a need for educating the farmers and creating awareness about capacity building through FIGS and FPS. The central and state governments have put lot of efforts on infrastructure development, but usage is not at the desired level. NABARD has taken initiatives to protect the interests of the farmers so that they receive the right price for their products. We have different channels for funding warehouse and infrastructure as also for providing credit facility to the farmers. NABARD has taken a developmental role in the credit part and we are requesting banks to finance the farmers. We have flexible policies and we have taken feedback from all the sources for policy formulation. Bankers are scared because of the continuous rise of NPAs. They have introduced agri credit but have failed in creating documentation.
Sridhar Kalyanasundaram, CEO, Suraaj Risk & Resilience Management Consultants
NABARD has schemes which they want to implement through financial institutions like banks, NBFCs, etc, but NABARD needs to look the other way also. What about NABARD refinancing schemes? NABARD needs to change its model for the schemes and should focus on innovative refinance schemes.
P. Sudhaker, CEO & founder, Shakti Capital
Famers’ inability to repay loans is the biggest problem faced by financial institutions. They are now tying up with farm-based corporates to lend to the farmers. This model has worked for them. The Tamil Nadu government and the department of agriculture should instruct banks and financial institutions to charge PMFBY scheme fees along with the loan provided to the farmers. Banks must achieve 18% targets in the priority sector lending. The state government should also provide details of the farmers’ requirements to all the bankers. This data should be divided into different zones and different banks should provide finance to these farmers. It will then help the banks in concentrating on those locations.
The agriculture ecosystem involves weather report, finance and insurance. Financing should happen based on this ecosystem and this would help borrowers and lenders. Regulators like NABARD and the state government’s agriculture department should supplement and complement each other.
Pankaj Pipariya, Sales Leader-India/South Asia, The Weather Company, an IBM Business
Weather impacts every sector of the economy. In a recent survey, we found that 100% of C-suite executives believe that weather impacts at least one cost and one revenue metric in their organizations, while 99% believe improved weather insights reduce annual operating costs and 93% say that weather impacts annual revenue growth. Three years ago, IBM acquired The Weather Company, which is one of the world’s largest private weather service providers. The Weather Company today is a known name i n weather forecasting across the world.
Around 90% of crop losses are due to bad weather. We can’t control the weather, but we can control our response to disruptive weather events by taking early action to mitigate the impact.
There are digitization challenges in farming. The Tamil Nadu government is at the forefront in digital initiatives in farming. Digitization is the key, if we don’t leverage the technology, we won’t be able to scale and replicate it. Crop cutting
experiments are time consuming, it involves money and effort. IBM technology aims to make farming effective and helps to achieve the last mile connectivity.
The world food requirement will double by 2030, but land is not going to increase. It is shrinking. We need to focus on sustainable crop production. IBM Watson Decision Platform for Agriculture is a single platform which connects multiple formats i n the agriculture ecosystem from fertilizers to pesticides, agriculture advisers to farm equipment and lenders.
IBM’s announcement of the new IBM Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting System (GRAF) is the first hourly-updating commercial weather system. Compared to existing models, IBM GRAF will provide a nearly 200% improvement in forecasting resolution for much of the globe. It will provide 3-kilometer resolution that updates hourly, delivering reliable predictions for the day ahead.
We provide information about current weather conditions, immediate forecast for the next 2 weeks and long-term weather forecast.
Dr Manish Modani, Senior Meteorologist for India/South Asia, The Weather Company, an IBM Business
Crop insurance companies are facing challenges in settling crop insurance claims. The insurers claim that it is not a neutral process for them. By using satellite technology, IBM provides a neutral outcome for the insurance companies. We are working with various insurance companies which are part of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana scheme. Artificial Intelligence is used for weather predictions. We take 30-50 crop samples and gather latitude, longitude and sowing date of crops. Through satellite imagery and modeling, we also gather information on soil moisture and soil temperature. We perform crop monitoring at periodic intervals to assess crop health progress, stress areas and identify crop diseases.
Our technology helps to track cyclones or thunderstorms. We predicted Cyclone Fani 20 days before it made landfall, which was well acknowledged by the disaster management departments across India. The Weather Company solutions can drive valuable insights for stakeholders across the industry by combining AI, analytics and predictive insights with industry experience, decades of research and relevant data – contributing to accurate weather prediction.
Sriram Venkat G, Olam International
We are working with many farmers across the world. In India, we have started a unique service on Android platform to reach to the farmers. In our survey among the Indian farmers, we found out that most of them face weather-related problems. In January 2019, we launched the ‘AgriCentral’ app on Google Play store; right now 20,000 farmers are using our platform. The app has features like weather predictions; it also helps us to track GPS location of the farmers and provide current weather and forecast for the next 15 days.
We also provide i mage analytics facility, which helps farmers to know about crop diseases. Olam has field executives who provide market rates for each of the commodities to the farmers and our backend system helps to store that information. We have a tie-up with IBM for integrated weather solutions. We receive 70% of weather-related queries from the farmers in our kisan call centre. Olam has 90-95% accurate weather prediction.
Arijita Dutta, Business Analyst, Olam International
We are collecting farm location data, which helps us to get the information about the agriculture economic zones; then we link IBM weather data with it. We are providing crop advisory plans to the farmers and we are in the process of making an agri sense portal for targeting the FPOs. Olam is collecting all the information about FPOs, land sizes, crops that farmers are growing and we are focusing on digitizing the entire process. We are also working on image analytics; we are covering 14 crops and will cover more in the coming months. We also cover 30-40 crop diseases in our app. We will be further revamping this mobile app in the coming months.
R Pandiyen, Founding Director, Trilok Capital
One of our clients provides linkage services between farming ecosystem by using agri-based platform. The client is creating a platform where payment flow will be seamless between the stakeholders using preloaded card information. This platform will be useful to track weather and seed data. The project is still in its pilot stage.