With the growing popularity of precision farming in industrialised countries, where workforce is a major limitation in managing large farms, for increasing food production with least damage to the environment, experts here feel the need for adoption of the same here.
Speaking at a workshop on ‘Strategies and Tools for Adoption and Implementation of Precision Agriculture’, jointly organised by the International Plant Nutrition Institute, South Asia Programme, Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University and the Indian Society of Soil Science (Hyderabad chapter), here recently, former deputy director-general of Indian Council of Agricultural Research EA Siddiq said India needed to step up production of food grains by 70 per cent to feed the growing population.
“It requires an appropriate precision farming strategy, keeping in view our future food needs, natural resource constraints, high costs of crop production and inevitable adverse impact of climate change,” he said.
International Plant Nutrition Institute’s South Asia programme director Kaushik Majumdar said the concept of precision farming, that is suited to large farms, needed to be reviewed in the context of global food security, climate change, high production targets, precise management of inputs, etc.
With the use of small smart electronic devices like Agri Crabs or Mobile Robots, farmers in the West probe and record moisture availability, nutrient status, disease and pest problems of individual plants and address them using corrective measures, he said.
