Telangana, Wadhwani AI team up to benefit cotton farmers

10 Apr '21

1 min read

Pic: Shutterstock

The Telangana state agriculture department recently signed an agreement with the Wadhwani Institute of Artificial Intelligence (Wadhwani AI) to deploy solutions for the benefit of cotton farmers. The Mumbai-based institute has developed an AI solution that equips smallholder cotton farmers with knowledge of an agriculture expert with the help of a smartphone.

The solution, delivered through an app, offers real-time localised advisory and surveillance, enabling farmers to catch pest infestations early to take correct and immediate action to avoid significant crop damage and subsequently improve the quality of the crop and incomes.

The solution is based on the scientific concept of action thresholds and is able to predict pink bollworm and American bollworm infestation, two of the most devastating pests for the cotton crop, according to media reports from the state.

In the 2020 kharif season, the solution was deployed with 700 lead farmers and 17,000 cascade farmers across the four states of Telangana, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka through agricultural programmes managed by the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) partners.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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