agricultural technology – The KGP Chronicle

IIT Kharagpur Develops Solar-powered Pest Control System for Smaller Farm Fields

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed energy-efficient pest controlling device for smaller agricultural tracts owned by marginal farmers. The research team has developed a self-propelled boom-type sprayer that can be operated using solar energy while safely guided through the crops in smaller tracts of land. The device is aimed to increase field capacity and uniformity in liquid spraying and also to reduce drudgery to the operator and dependency on fossil fuel for carrying out spraying in cropped areas.

Prevention of pests and diseases during different growth stages of crops is an important process to increase its yield. For larger tracts of farmlands, tractor mounted sprayers are used, while manually operated knapsack sprayer is used for smaller tracts. This impacts the efficiency of spraying as it depends on the skill of the operator leading to non-uniformity in spraying. Further, it requires intensive labour capacity and operation time. Using tractor-mounted sprayers in smaller tracts on the other hand would make the crops prone to damages due to their higher turning radius. Also, it leads to the wastage of chemicals due to lower control on automated spraying. Not to mention the environmental pollution due to the fuel emissions from the tractor.

It is important to note, about 82% of the farming community are categorized as small or marginal as per FAO with landholding less than 2 hectares [Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India, 2019]. With a view to improve the condition of small and marginal farmers and to double the income of farmers by 2022, Government is realigning its interventions from a production-centric approach to farmers’ income-centric initiatives, with a focus on better and new technological solutions.

“This is an open call to the technical institutions in India to deliver in the field of precision agricultural technologies. In the IIT system, IIT Kharagpur has the sole distinction of having an Agricultural & Food Engineering department. Hence it is our foremost responsibility to answer this call,” opined Prof. Virendra K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

The semi-automated device developed by Prof. Hifjur Raheman, Anup Behera Rahul K and Prof. P.B.S. Bhadoria from the Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering at IIT Kharagpur will address several challenges of the mechanized pest control systems in the small farm sector.

The system comprises a propelling unit fitted with a liquid storage tank, a DC motor operated pump to pressurize the liquid to be sprayed. Multiple numbers of spray nozzles are mounted on a boom fitted to the front of the machine to cover wider width at a time. A set of solar-powered battery act as the power source of the DC motor to propel the spraying unit as well as for running the pump. Unlike a knapsack sprayer, the liquid storage tank is of bigger capacity and it is carried on a solar-powered three-wheeler trolley. An operator is required to control the movement of the spraying unit. A simple arrangement has been provided to vary the height of spraying (i.e., nozzle height from the ground) to carryout spraying for different heights of crops. Solar panels are mounted on top of the machine to provide continuous power supply during operation through the Maximum Power Point Tracker controller and it also provides shade to the operator during spraying in the field.

“As compared to conventional knapsack sprayers, the developed sprayer has a higher field capacity and more uniformity of spraying with less drudgery to the operator. It can be easily operated in the field using solar energy with a maximum speed of 2 km/h and can cover a width of 1.5 metre at a time with a field efficiency of 81% thus saving time, human involvement and chemicals,” remarked Prof. Raheman.

The researchers have filed a patent for the product and it is ready for commercialization.

Director Tewari who is also a leading expert in the field of farm machinery and power engineering said, “We have developed several such technologies covering micro-irrigation, shed net cultivation and food processing at the Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering which are in use in various villages across the 23 districts of West Bengal and other states in Eastern India, covering almost 20000 farmers. Such innovations empower each member of the farming community following the pathway towards Atmanirbhar Bharat.”

Contact:

Dr. H. Raheman, Professor, Department of Agricultural & Food Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur; Tel: 03222-283160 (O); E: hifjur@agfe.iitkgp.ac.in

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More information:

Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering: http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/AG

Center for Rural Development and Innovative Sustainable Technology: http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/RD

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IIT Kharagpur to Incubate Agri-Food Startups to support Food Security

Shiksha Mantri to Flag-off Agri-Food Techathon at IIT Kharagpur to promote Agri and Food Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship

IIT Kharagpur in association with NABARD is organizing the first of its kind Agri-Food Techathon (AFT 2021), to promote the participation of India’s youth in innovation and entrepreneurship in different domains of the Agri-Food sector. AFT-2021 will be inaugurated by Hon’ble Shiksha Mantri Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ on January 25, 2021. The foundation of the Agri-Business Incubation Centre will also be laid at the inaugural event, which will carry out the mandate to incubate innovative ideas in agriculture and food technology domain for creating Agri-preneures.

Agriculture is the largest employment vertical with a GDP share of 14%. Over the years, India has witnessed a substantial increase in yields, crop diversity due to mechanization and knowledge dissemination programmes. However, the steeping consumption due to population explosion has been a constant challenge demanding rapid progress in the agricultural sector.

Talking about the initiative Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur opined, “While India is moving at an accelerated pace towards automation and digitization, there is a crucial need to complement it with automation in the rural livelihood and farm sector and warrant uniform progress. To achieve this goal we are reaching out to the talented youth of this country through the Agri-Food Techathon. This platform will enable them to exhibit and depict their creativity, problem-solving and prototyping-skills in Agriculture and Food Technology thus leading to indigenous product development, employment generation and fulfilment of our promise to Atmanirbhar Bharat.”

The national-level online technical fest spanned over January – March 2021, will have participation from over 750 university/college students, entrepreneurs and rural youths from across the country in the age range of 20-25 years with diverse academic background. Apart from workshops, mentorship and guest talks, AFT-2021 will host a competitive B-plan submission for the participants.

Business and technology experts in areas covering farm mechanization, AIML, IoT in agriculture, precision farming, greenhouse farming, organic farming, agricultural biotechnology, soil technology and testing, food processing, packaging and storage, food supply chain management.

Renowned professional experts from countries premier institutions like IIT Kharagpur, IARI New Delhi, CIAE Bhopal and Founders / CEOs of different successful agri-food tech startups like Sickle Foundation, Sfarms India, Fasal, Nutrigreen, Organic Farming, Cropin, B2V, Keyhti, Khadyam, Crofarm, WAycool, Villa Mart, etc. are taking part in the Sensitization Workshop of the AFT-2021.

More than 30 teams with high potential will be selected for formal association with ABIC, IIT Kharagpur. They will be offered assistance in the form of Technology and Business Development Mentorship, R&D support, Laboratory / Workshop / Pilot Plant access and Funding Opportunities through potential Investors / Accelerators. Business and technology experts from key domains of Agriculture and Food Technology will be involved as panellists and mentors.

The event is being organized by Agricultural & Food Engineering Department, Centre for Rural Development & Innovative Sustainable Technologies and Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship in association with NABARD.

Prof. H N Mishra, Professor-in-Charge of the Agri Business Incubation Centre (ABIC), remarked, “At our Centre, we will facilitate the incubated startups to develop low-cost technologies and transfer them for sustainable development of rural communities. We shall further conduct hands-on training, workshops, and seminars for capacity building of farmers and unemployed rural youth.”

Special emphasis will be given through action-oriented research to promote climate-resilient agriculture in vulnerable districts, agricultural value chains, promote farmers’ collectives, value addition, market-linkage, and risk management; also offering expert advisory services, policy advocacy including building up of human capital in rural areas.

For more information on AFT 2021 and ABIC, please visit: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/agri-food-techathon-aft-2021/

Automating sugarcane plantation to boost profitability

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed devices for automating a range of functions for planting sugarcane buds, fitted with an autonomous fungicide application with the aim to reduce labour hours and raw material wastage.

Sugarcane is a global industrial crop popular for the production of sugar, bioenergy, paper, ethanol, electricity etc. The economic importance of the crop in India is paramount with the country registering 17% of global sugarcane production, second only to Brazil. But each year the farmers are losing excess cane stalk as seed material due to conventional cultivation practice which is also labour and time-intensive thus increasing the overall production cost.

A view of a bud separated from sugarcane stalk

The sugarcane planting system, developed by the research team at the Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering, consists of a machine vision-based bud cutting machine and a tractor operated bud planting machine.

The bud cutting machine involves three sub-mechanisms – a sugarcane feeding system, a machine vision system for the identification of sugarcane buds and a mechatronic system for cutting the identified bud.

The first sub-mechanism feeds the whole-cane stalk towards the imaging and cutting zone.
The second sub-mechanism identifies the bud location on a cane stalk by means of machine vision, which directs the third sub-mechanism to regulate the decision for cutting action.
The third sub-mechanism is the assembly of mechatronically integrated cutting tools that removes the bud portion from the whole cane.

The tractor operated bud planting machine is also developed for the planting of the prepared sugarcane buds and application of fungicide. It consists of a two-row bud planting mechanism and a sensor-based autonomous fungicide application system.

The functions of the machine include opening a wide soil furrow using furrow openers, picking the buds from the seedbox with the help of a metering mechanism, placing the buds into the soil through a seed delivery tube, sensing of the placed bud and automatic application of fungicide on the bud.

The mechanism would allow reusing 80% of the internodes generated during the process for sugar production and other mainstream purposes.

Output of the bud cutting system

“This technology holds a significant potential at industrial and local levels especially in countries like India that are among the major producers but lacks automation for input developments. This system may further assist in reducing the net planting material requirements against the conventional methods adopted for sugarcane plantation. We can save the excess amount of cane stalk, trashed in the conventional plantation thus reducing the sizable loss of raw material,” said Prof. Virendra K Tewari, Director of the Institute and Professor of farm machinery, who led this product innovation.

The throughput capacity of the developed system with a single cutting unit can range up to 1418 buds/hour.

“Through this automation technology, we can generate seeding material for a hectare of land in 10-15 hours which otherwise takes about 60-90 hours when relying on conventional (manual) methods. This could not only turn out to be a cost-saving opportunity for the farming community but a capacitive solution for sugarcane cultivation through bud chips as well,” added Prof. Tewari.

Conceptual diagram of the autonomous fungicide spraying system

Another area that is addressed through this technology is the autonomous fungicide application which is integrated into the tractor operated planting machine. To protect the seed from soil-borne disease, a sensor-based spraying system has been designed and integrated with the planter to apply a predefined amount of fungicide over the bud and the surrounding soil.

Dr. Brajesh Nare who carried out his doctoral work at IIT Kharagpur and currently working as a scientist at ICAR-CPRI Shimla remarked, “The autonomous system was developed for spot application of liquid fungicide at the time of placement of the bud in the furrow. The function of this system is to detect the buds just before their placement in soil and spray a prescribed amount of chemical on the bud and around the soil. A significant chemical saving was found to be 48% with the sensor-based application at the selected speeds.”

The machines have been tested on a varied range of sugarcane diameters and two popular cultivars were chosen to evaluate the system performances. The research team has filed for a patent in addition to publications in international journals. The other members in the team include Abhilash Chandel, Satry Prakash, Chethan CR, Prateek Shrivastava and Chanchal Gupta.

“Such systems can be majorly employed across the major sugarcane producing countries as complementary and economic tools. Moreover, such units may be multiplied and incorporated industrially to produce sugarcane planting material as per the size of cultivation,” opined Dr. Nare.

Research Contact: Prof. V K Tewari, Professor, Dept. of Agricultural & Food Engineering, E: vktfeb@agfe.iitkgp.ac.in; Dr. Vrajesh Nare, Scientist, ICAR-CPRI, E: brajeshagengg@gmail.com

Media Contact: Shreyoshi Ghosh, E: shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

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IIT KGP Develops Agro-Robotic Solution for Plant Disease Management

IIT Kharagpur Develops Robotic Solution for Plant Disease Identification and Pesticide Use

India is moving at an accelerated pace towards digitization automation. The farm sector which employs about 58% of India’s workforce and contributes to about 14% of the current GDP, has adopted technological advancement to warrant uniform progress. However, farm mechanization in India still has less than 50% penetration. The Govt of India has been taking several measures and a significant drive towards this end is the multi-body project “Development of autonomous multipurpose agricultural robotic platform” funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and run by C-DAC Kolkata as the nodal implementing institute along with IIT Kharagpur, BAU Ranchi and KCT Coimbatore. Under this project, IIT Kharagpur has designed a robotic system capable of identifying the plant diseases (say vegetables, maize etc.) through the camera-captured image analysis and spraying the appropriate pesticide, as the situation demands.

The robotic system is a tracked mobile manipulator that aims to achieve the conflicting objectives of increased productivity, improved quality. This robotic system consists of (i) a tracked vehicle suitable for negotiating rough terrain field, (ii) a serial manipulator mounted on the tracked vehicle capable of holding the camera and pesticide spraying nozzle, (iii) a pesticide spraying module, and (iv) camera-based vision module.

Prof. D K Pratihar, from the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering who is leading this innovative project said, “Our device can detect the plant diseases using camera and image analysis thus model the uncertainty associated with the human vision system and consequently remove it. This will help the farmers to detect the disease(s) correctly. Further use of such a device instead of manual operation of spraying pesticide will protect the farmers from related probable health hazards.”

The device has been fabricated by Sun Fab Industries Pvt. Limited, Mumbai (in collaboration with TECHNIDO).

“The serial manipulator will have sufficient dexterous workspace making it capable of spraying the pesticides from the top, bottom and various sides of the plant, which may be difficult to achieve utilizing the widely used drones,” said Prof. Alok Kanti Deb from the Dept of Electrical Engineering.

The developed robotic system is battery-driven one and once it is fully charged, it will be able to perform its duty in the field for about two hours. The robot will be operated remotely using buttons placed on a control panel and thus, a specialist technician may not be required for operating the robot in the field.

“We will soon resume the final assembly of the robotic system and field testing as we are recovering from the present COVID-situation. We have further plans in the future to make this robot autonomous and intelligent,” confirmed Prof. Pratihar.

The Government of India is giving a major boost to innovative rural livelihood technologies. In May 2020, the Finance Ministry had announced an economic stimulus of ₹1.5 trillion to boost agricultural infrastructure and logistics.

Talking about the potential of such technologies Director, Prof. V K Tewari, who himself is an expert in farm machinery design and precision agriculture said, “If we are looking at a comprehensive development towards Atmanirbhar Bharat, the strategic importance of such technology development is profound. Most importantly such technologies need to be taken from the lab to the land.”

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Project Contact: Prof. D K Pratihar, dkpra@mech.iitkgp.ac.in

Media Contact: Shreyoshi Ghosh, E: shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in; M: +91 8145 736 048

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IIT KGP Forecasts Facilitating Farming Decisions

IIT Kharagpur’s Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa is forecasting climatic risks and advising farmers for better agricultural decision-making

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Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed an advanced weather prediction system to facilitate better decision making in agricultural production and reduction of climatic uncertainties and risks. Sponsored by the Ministry of Earth Sciences the two projects ‘Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa’ ‘and ‘Forecasting Agricultural output using Space, Agrometeorology & Land based observations’ provide timely and right management decisions to farmers to minimize the climatic risk of agricultural production and improve economic return of farming community. The Institute, in collaboration with India Meteorological Department, is disseminating a weather based agro-advisory to farmers for improving agricultural production in highly variable weather conditions.

“The agro-advisory indicating crop and variety selection, sowing/planting time, land preparation, input management, harvest, etc are prepared based on future weather and land characteristics of specific location,” said Prof. Dilip Kumar Swain, from the Dept. of Agricultural & Food Engineering at IIT Kharagpur.

Yield forecasting of crops such as rice, mustard and potato are done at the beginning of sowing/planting, during cropping season and before crop harvest for different districts of West Bengal for introducing specific actions to avoid the yield loss due to weather abnormalities.

“Farmers get awareness on input management such as fertilizer, irrigation, and pesticide application every week throughout the cropping season. Based on a five-day weather forecast, the agro-advisory is prepared on Tuesday and Friday every week and communicated to farmers’ through their mobile phone,” he added.

The advisory is sent in local language to about 3 lakh farmers of five districts (West Medinipur, Jharagram, Bankura, Birbhum, and Purulia) in West Bengal. The advisory is also communicated to district level agricultural officers, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, NGOs, farmers’ portal, TV programme, etc. Using the advisory, farmers protect their crop from extreme events and reduce the production cost by need based irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide application.

“Besides sending the agro-advisory, we also conduct training and awareness programmes regularly in villages on organic farming, vermicomposting, hydroponics, integrated farming, advanced production technology, etc for sustainable agricultural growth, farmers’ capacity building, rural employment generation, increasing economic profit, etc.,” remarked Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

A good response from the farmers was received about the agromet advisory services provided by IIT Kharagpur, he confirmed

Towards Farm Digitization

IIT Kharagpur Training Researchers in Application of Digital Technologies in Agriculture for bringing Digital Revolution in the Farm sector

In 2015, the Government of India had launched the Digital India programme to transition India’s public service sector into the digital space. Agriculture is the largest employment vertical with a GDP share of 14% holds a key place in this mission to digitization. Over the years, India has witnessed a substantial increase in yields, crop diversity due to mechanization and knowledge dissemination programmes. However, the steeping consumption due to population explosion and rising income has been a constant challenge despite the progress in the agricultural sector. While the Govt. of India has set up several programmes to achieve the dual solution of automation and digitization, technical institutions can facilitate the transformation. Towards this end, IIT Kharagpur is training the farming community and organizing outreach programmes.

The Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering has launched an online course on “Application of Digital Technologies in Agriculture” under the Centre of Excellence for Digital Farming Solutions for Enhancing Productivity by Robots, Drones and AGVs project sponsored by NAHEP-CAAST, ICAR, New Delhi. The short-term course will focus on engaging smart technologies for enhancing productivity with minimal effort and cost. These would include Sensors, Drones, Robots, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Machine Vision Techniques, Computer-Aided Design and Advanced Digital Technologies application in Agriculture.

“Outreach projects in agricultural digitization are of paramount importance towards development and adoption of knowledge-intensive agriculture education. Globally researchers have been extending their support to precision farming and smart farming through innovations and data analytics. While our Prime Minister had announced a digital marketplace for the farming community, the technical institutions like ours also need to facilitate farming technology requirements of India. The recent calamities and their aftermath has shown why we need to be ready for bad monsoon or climate change or even return to organic farming ways while enhancing agricultural yields by means of technology,” said Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur and Principal Investigator of NAHEP-CAAST-IIT Kharagpur.

The NAHEP centre is integrated by three interdisciplinary research divisions such as Agribots, Agri-Drones and Agri-AGV’s based on four portfolios – 1. Climate-based Digital Knowledge Support Centre; 2. Seed/Seedling Processing and Nursery Automation Centre; 3. Smart Portable Machinery Centre; 4. Food Processing Automation Centre. It envisages the enhancement of quality and relevance of agricultural higher education to the agricultural university students.

“It is crucial to empower the human resources with digital technologies in the field of agricultural science and technology, particularly in less-explored domains. The penetration of such knowledge will drive further R&D and create a culture to understand and expedite the adoption of advanced technologies in agricultural practices,” said Prof. Rajendra Machavaram, joint Principal Investigator of NAHEP-CAAST-IIT Kharagpur.

The current course piloted with the postgraduate and doctoral students, faculty members, and scientists from the Vasantarao Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth, Maharashtra. However, it garnered significant interest among students and researchers from other institutions and also alumni of IIT Kharagpur. The online lectures for the course have been made available on the Google Meet Link: https://meet.google.com/mwg-cgbn-ddy

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Contacts:

Project Information: Prof. Rajendra Machavaram rajendra@agfe.iitkgp.ac.in;

Institute Related: Prof. B N Singh, registrar@hijli.iitkgp.ac.in;

Media Outreach: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in;

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Transforming Rural Economies

COVID-19 has given a clarion call for a technology-enabled world, more so in the context of the Indian rural sector which has always stayed several steps behind the urban way of living. The slow progress could be attributed to not just lack of financial resources but also towards weak communication of functional knowledge, for a large population lacking literacy (M: 80.9%, F: 64.6%), and reliance on western technologies failing to cater to the requirements of the rural population of India. Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have come forward to bridge this gap by rolling out farming technologies as well as non-farming technologies for rural employment.

Talking about this initiative, Director, IIT Kharagpur, Prof. Virendra Tewari said,

“The Government of India offers huge subsidies for mechanization of the rural sector, but the farm machinery sector has not invested significantly in creating a market for indigenous technologies addressing the burning need of the Indian rural sector. Experts at IIT Kharagpur are answering this challenge by designing technologies well suited for the livelihood of the rural class of our country.”

The Institute, through its Precision Farming Development Centre, Farm Implements and Machinery and Rural Technology Action Group projects, has developed and deployed farm machinery including ranging from micro-irrigation, combined harvester, crop and vegetable planters, solar energy operated transplanters, groundnut diggers, ultrasonic sprayers. Further non-farming livelihood technologies for rural small-scale and cottage industries have been mechanized. To name a few, Dhenki, Potter Wheel, Jute Rope making, Door Mat making, Amber Charkha, Rice Flaking. The initiative also includes social impact technologies such as Smokeless Chullahs, Rural Drinking Water Facility.

Prof Kamlesh Tiwari, one of the lead researchers in this program confirmed the training of around 2500 farmers from nearby villages of West Bengal and Odisha in micro-irrigation and protected cultivation structures. Several farmers who adopted these farm machinery and farm equipment reported a decrease in labor cost, reduction in the cost of cultivation, timeliness operations, improvement in pulverization, increase in soil fertility and production. Mr. Karthik Maity, from Hurnal village of Purba Medinipur and Subratha Mahesh from the Gurgram village of Paschim Medinipur, expressed their delight over their enhanced yield due to the technologies they adopted and the increased profits.

Further, outreach programs were organized by the Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering and the Rural Development Centre to communicate, train rural people and help their transition to mechanized farming and livelihoods. IIT Kharagpur has extensively mobilized the funding available under national mission projects like ‘National Initiative for Design Innovation’ and ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyan’ towards achieving this goal.

“We are ensuring the technologies are being implemented either in their farms or being adopted to generate employment through startups, setting up self-help groups. The livelihood technology adoption program witnessed significant acceptance in three North Eastern states including Assam, Manipur, Tripura as well as in several districts of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu,” Prof. Kamlesh Tiwari said.

Earlier this year, the India Brand Equity Foundation, an initiative of the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, had estimated the gross value to be added by the rural sector, including agriculture, forestry and fishing, at ₹20 trillion approximately with a dominant employment share of 58%. Also, in May, the Finance Ministry had announced an economic stimulus of ₹1.5 trillion to boost agricultural infrastructure and logistics and ₹400 billion was allocated for the rural employment guarantee scheme. Referring to this Director, Prof. Virendra Tewari further emphasized on the strategic importance of such technology development.

He remarked, “While India is moving at an accelerated pace towards digitization, there is a crucial need to complement it with automation in the rural livelihood and farming sector and warrant a uniform progress. Such transition in rural livelihood will not only increase productivity and earnings manifold but will also lead to capacity building for rural and cottage industries, improved product quality, increased employment, and entrepreneurship opportunities in rural areas.”

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Contacts:

Project Information: Prof. Kamlesh N Tiwari, kamlesh@agfe.iitkgp.ac.in;

Institute Related: Prof. B N Singh, registrar@hijli.iitkgp.ac.in;

Media Outreach: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in; More News:: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/;

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