The 21st century is defined by the use of technology. The world is moving towards big data, quantum computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and more new technologies. India holds a huge opportunity to take advantage and be an IT giant and revolutionise the agriculture sector. The green revolution was a big step in increasing agriculture production. The IT revolution in Indian agriculture will reshape the agriculture practices and concepts such as digital agriculture, smart agri, precision agriculture and agriculture 4.0.
All the concepts play around one common factor: technology usage to upscale, modify and upgrade the agriculture sector. Digital agriculture as a result of industry 4.0 is becoming popular, revolutionising and bringing significant changes in farming and supply chain processes. Genome editing, innovative breeding technologies and integration of modern technologies with microbial soil mapping is adopted worldwide to increase the yield quality, disease-resistant seeds and develop pesticides and so forth. Nanomaterials are used in smart agri to target nutrients delivery, disease detection & treatment, crop growth-boosting and bioactive compound delivery to targeted areas in the field.
The smart agri concept is beneficial for big farms where all agriculture technologies work efficiently. As the performance of smart agri solutions is degraded for small lands, smallholder farmers are not enough to benefit from the concept. Innovative, transformational farm solutions working efficiently and accurately in small areas need to be developed as most farmers are smallholders in India. Indian farmers still rely on traditional knowledge and practices such as selecting crops for their land. Smart agri provides the best crop suggestion based on the analysis of soil type & quality, weather pattern, market demand and other important factors. Additionally, smart agri solutions are dedicated to reduce the investment, impact on the environment while increasing production and profit.
Digital agriculture addresses crucial aspects of farming, such as stages of farming and cost of production. The digitalisation of farms provides reliable information on the type of seed, soil health analysis, quality of soil preparation, real-time crop analysis, moisture percentage estimation, and so forth. The right harvest time is essential to gain maximum profit from the produce. Digital solutions provide when the crop has the highest nutritional content and the optimum time to harvest. Thus, whether it is smart agri or digital agriculture, the aim is to increase production, reduce resource usage, and make agribusinesses affordable and profitable. Though technologies used in both concepts may vary, the goal is to make farming processes easier, simpler, effective and accurate!