farming

Automating sugarcane plantation to boost profitability

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…
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IIT KGP Forecasts Facilitating Farming Decisions

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 Hindustan Times       Live Mint        India Blooms        News 18 (Hindi)         Careers360        The Week      Outlook         News Nation      USA Science News             Financial Express        Republic World       Navbharat Times      The Arunachal Times       Deccan Herald Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed an advanced weather prediction system to facilitate better decision making in agricultural production and reduction of…
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Towards Farm Digitization

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…
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Transforming Rural Economies

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…
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