SRMIST & The Hindu Present A Webinar on 'Agri Tech Revolution: Engineering the Future of Farming'

Added: 2026-05-24

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[00:04:26]SRM Institute of Science and Technology.

[00:04:30]Learn, leap and lead.

[00:04:43]Hello everyone. I welcome you all to join this webinar conducted jointly by the SRM Institute of Science and Technology and the Hindu uh on agreech revolution that we are seeing around the country and around the globe. Now uh it's on uh the this discussion will be primarily on the engineering and the future farming. Uh it will highlight how uh this rapid technological advancements are reshaping uh our agriculture sector and creating innovative solutions uh for modern uh farming challenges. These challenges include the uh unpredictable climate change uh fluctuations in price uh trade and tariff issues. All these issues have a technological solution that has scientists have been advocating. So this is this discussion is part of uh the future career conversations series uh that has helped a number of students in creating awareness students not just students and their parents too. uh uh about the academic and professional opportunities that we have around us. So as we know agriculture is the largest employer of this country with about 45% of our workforce above 15 years of age uh are engaged uh uh in agriculture. So it's it's it's it's the conventional wisdom of agriculture work has now changed with agriculture increasingly uh adapting to smart technologies and uh u see we have seen how drone lies have changed their uh social status uh by uh using drones in our farms and all.

[00:06:33]So this discussion uh of this webinar will explore the growing role of engineering particularly uh uh the technological innovations uh in improving productivity uh sustainability and efficiency of our farming farming practices. So to discuss this topic we have an imminent team of panelist uh so I am very proud to introduce each of them with you. We have with us uh Dr. Devindra Dingra he's the principal scientist of process engineering uh in the agriculture engineering division of the Indian council of agriculture research ICR based in New Delhi. He has been associated with ICI since 1993 and he has served as m in at the various uh institutes major institutes including the central institute of post-h harvest engineering and technology central institute of agriculture engineering IC's Indian institute of natural uh resins and gums and uh now he's placed at the ICR headquarters his work focuses on posth harvest engineering grain shortage food processing food safety and reduction of posth harvest losses. Every individual must be uh like eager to know uh his works. So I welcome Dr. Thigra to this webinar. I'm sure his expertise he will share with us though we have very limited time here. So now I I welcome Miss Pa Pushka. Uh she's an entrepreneur. She's a founding member of the Samunati group and is currently serving as the CEO of the Samunati Foundation. Miss Puna brings over two decades of leadership experience spanning human resources, corporate strategy, sustainability, branding, communications and uh institutions building based on this agree and rural ecosystem.

[00:08:28]So as CEO of Samunati Foundation, she has provided strategic leadership for uh initiatives focused on strengthening farmer institutions uh improving smart hold small holder livelihood. I mean as we know the the the 90% of the country's farm based small holder farm base uh and she has also been working to enable women led rural entrepreneurship and advancing climate resilient agriculture practices very important for almost entire climate resilient agriculture is being discussed but at a national level uh now her work centers uh on building scalable partnerships across uh corporates uh development institutions and ecosystem stakeholders to create long-term inclusive impact on rural communities. Uh the other panel is for SRM community. There is no need for itation of these well-known academics from our SRM community. I first welcome Dr. Lenus Ju Martin. He's the dean of faculty of engineering and technology at the SRM institute. uh his works are based on the latest technological innovations that have a connect with the day-to-day lives of the people. uh this includes agriculture, food processing, uh storage. uh so uh as as a technocrat I mean as as an academic who has uh deep interest and links with technology he has been helping um uh to evolve uh technologies that that has a connect with the day-to-day life of a human being. So I'm sure that his valuable contributions will help us to understand the innovations with much clarity. So I welcome Dr. us to this discussion. Now let me introduce Dr. Jawal M. He's the dean of SRM College of Agriculture Science. Um he he just I mean he himself is a farmer and horiculture. Uh Dr. Johalal has helped hundreds of students during his illustrial career to find a connect between agriculture and technology. uh he has experience and expertise in preh harvest and post-h harvest management use of data for agriculture and technological methods to enhance production. I am sure uh that he will share some of his expertise uh with us during uh this uh brief seminar and uh I am Jiggish. My name is Jiggish. I am a senior deputy editor with the Hindus National Bureau based in Delhi and I cover agriculture, food, uh labor and uh such policy issues for the newspaper. I I I once again welcome you all for this webinar. So let me begin with a question to Dr. Dr. Tingra uh Dr. Thingra as a reporter I have visited several of your facilities ICIS facilities that work on the most modern technologies that are available today globally. So the government has been talking about the idea of from lab to farm. So there have been even uh an attempt last year if I remember correctly where the minister himself traveled with the team of ICI I mean experts to the villages of several states with the help of state agriculture universities with the help of state agriculture departments and he uh uh he visited several states along with these uh including the ICR DG uh in that team. So just wanted to understand it's a general question where does we stand in terms of the modern technology in agriculture. What is our countries?

[00:12:13]We have seen genomemed edited rice varieties very recently uh released. Uh there have been uh discussions about uh modern technologies including drones and post-h harvest technologies. So where do we stand now? Can we can particularly to understand the students uh if you can explain uh what is our position the country's position in terms of agree technology agree tech revolution sir >> thank you Jesh and uh very good morning to the organizers and welcome to the participants uh as you have introduced as you have asked the science and technology has made uh tremendous uh in insights into our agriculture and our production system. This is I think the one of the reason that the introduction of scientific methods, engineering interventions in all aspects of agriculture that today we are able to feed more than 1 million 140 million population and also we are exporting apart from few commodities. So if you look into say first of all I will come with mechanization. If you come for mechanization, our seedbed preparation, sewing and planting of field crops, I think we are at the level of around 47% of it is mechanized. Even in the states of Punjab and Aran a lot of harvesting is also mechanized. So right now from Madhya Pradesh to Punjab to western UP most of it is mechanized. Yes, mechanization and harvesting in say for horicultural crops is still a issue and uh the work is going on. But in case of field crops lot of mechanization has happened after the introduction of tractors, irrigation equipment. Now we have all kind of irrigation equipment.

[00:13:59]We have tractors and along with tractors we have the farm machinery. Initially we had say plows, seed drills. Now we have precision equipment which can drill the seed to the proper depth which can place the fertilizer at the proper right place. And then there are planters. Then there are equipment for protection sprayers. And now have you said that we have come with drones for spraying.

[00:14:23]Drones are being actively used for monitoring the crops as well as for spraying the pesticides or insecticides.

[00:14:29]In case of posth harvest if you see grain storage in India we have done tremendous amount of grain is stored by the government agencies uh food corporation of India CWC and they are uh involving a lot of agricultural graduates. they're working for them and at the farmers level over 60 to 65% of the produce is stored by the farmers.

[00:14:50]Apart from that in case of cold storage also we have made tremendous improvements. Right now you can see you can have year round potatoes and some more crops which are available to the consumers and even case of cold chain we are also developing and it is being introduced into the agricultural systems. Some of the things I would like to tell the students especially I think they are the attendees. The rice you get in 1 kg pack or five 5 kg pack which is very clean. There is not a single grain black grain. So these are done by color sorting machines which involve cameras and computers and these are there in our industry for the last 30 to 40 years.

[00:15:32]Now some of our startups in association with ICR and state agriculture universities they have made automatic grading and sorting equipment. These are already in uh uh uh introduced in say kind of places like apple growing states Himachel and Jammu and Kashmir and apples as well as kinos oranges are being sorted by these high-tech machines and these have become these are expensive but these have become popular because they are fast and they're accurate compared to the human uh graders. So we can get quality material.

[00:16:08]they have also helped us in exporting our produce. So these are the kind of technologies and then we have uh the other the which are very common is we have satellites, we have field sensors which are helping us in weather advisories. You can have it on your mobiles. You can get the weather advisories. And then the government had done through ICR, through state agriculture universities, through the department of agriculture in each state.

[00:16:34]The soil health, soil health cards were made because soil health is very important. Water quality is very important. There are some issues which you may not be knowing. There are certain areas where the water is not good. Saline, soils are saline, soils are sodic. So how to grow uh produce in that and how to improve that and sometimes in some cases in saline soil somewhere people have come up with fisheries so they can grow uh fish and other uh products over there in such situation. So ICR, government of India, state agriculture, universities are trying to put in intensive uh science and technological inputs to see that each and every portion of our arable land and our river and water resources are being optimally used to grow food as well as allied products. Apart from that you will see that livestock ICR and state agree they have done a lot in uh vaccine development for livestock and fish and that have helped us in keeping our livestock healthy and that is why we are at the top in milk production and it is also an allied uh occupancy for our farmers where they can get cash very fast from the animal husbandry sector from poultry from fish. So these are all the sectors where techn science and technology has done a wonderful thing in making our country self-reliant in almost accepting one or two crops. So we are self-reliant and we are also exporting.

[00:18:06]>> Thank you. I think if you have more I can I can more we'll come back to you.

[00:18:11]Uh it's very important aspect you have now started uh talking about. So uh uh let me go to Miss Puna Pushkella. See you are an entrepreneur. You are a you are a job provider. So now uh uh Dr. Dhingra has talked about uh a number of aspects which may be unknown to uh uh students around us uh on technology and other innovations. So uh the periodic labor force surveys that come uh every month uh still shows agriculture as the uh largest uh employer in the country uh but uh most of its low productivity uh I mean most of it jobs are of low productivity and kind of subsistence work. So how can an engineering or an agree technology or a shift towards agriculture technology uh can can make this this uh sector as from the last employer of the last resort to an employer of choice. uh people like you uh lot of people have uh now uh youngsters particularly are uh with uh the best education after receiving the best educations are going towards agriculture to make their living. So uh how to make this sector as the employer of choice uh for particularly for uh uh science uh technology engineering and mathematics uh students what is your >> good morning everyone uh so I come from Samunati we work across the agree value chain and we have been in the space for over a decade now so I probably share the practitioner view uh Dr. Dingra has already covered all the areas where you know technology is playing a role over and above all of these uh you know one fundamental shift that has happened in the last uh probably you know in my own journey what I have seen is in the last five six years especially postco is a lot of technology innovations that are happening where like uh you know gig you just called out now agriculture is not just about farm productivity it has become a value chain activity and the value chain actually starts with data science it goes all the way until you know it's a circular economy now and um the areas that probably Dr. Dingra didn't cover which is very attractive for the young insters today is also how do we convert these agree mass which is the bow-waste into energy. So there is a lot of work that's happening in the carbon space. There is a lot of work that's happening uh you know where we are looking at converting this biomass residue into uh you know energy uh by you know looking at compressed bio gas bofuels making this as an input and multiple decentralized energy systems you know clubbing this with the power of solar there is a lot and if you look at all of these you know there is one underlying element which is innovation and this act innovation predominantly comes from the engineering space and uh you know there is one whole lot of area where you know we are still you spoke about dregery that is because India has multiple agroclimatic zones the same crop is not you know the same what is in Tamil Nadu it is not the same way it behaves in let's say Uttar Pradesh so we need you know highly customized solutions and likewise you know hilly terrains are there vizawi you know there are plain lands so today we don't have technologies that are customized for the aggroclimatic zone or for the terrain Right. So lot of the newer space that you were talking about people who have you know uh come out they have gone into startup space working on an innovation idea and there are several post office technologies that now that are now available in the market where uh you know these are created by students probably you know with some somebody with either five years experience somebody who incubates this idea right at the when they are in the college using a hackathon or you know working with an incubator. But what we have seen is increasingly they have taken up a problem and they have made it attractive for youth to get into agriculture today because you know there is no value chain there is no part of the value chain today that technology cannot influence or impact everything can today be driven by technology. Earlier we were only looking at technology complementing manual efforts. Now you know laborer uh there there are no laborers around you know in many uh farmlands of India because we are also fragmented and small land holding the major problem is who will do all the manual work. So more and more need for innovation is coming from there and which is what is going to make it relevant for you know the engineers and people to look at the space and gone are the days where you have to come from an agriculture background to be able to unlock and solve this problem. uh if you have the passion, if you have the inclination to solve for a problem and the innovation mindset is there, the space becomes attractive for everybody.

[00:23:09]So I think you know we should not be now looking at agriculture only as farm productivity. We have to look at agriculture as a fundamental system that is required for all our existence because food security is real right climate changes are real. uh sir has already spoken about all things around weather advisory and tomorrow you know as as days go by the future is going to be determined by you know these proactive system alerts that are going to come uh you know we cannot model anything basis the last 10 years or 15 years because the last 2 three years the climate change has been so significant that our past work has become very uh you know it is good model but it may not be relevant to build a future so it's going to be technology at every step of the way and across every part of the value chain from input to uh you know processing sir has already spoken about rice and same thing applies for every other commodity and then there is a whole lot of value addition space right because agree today is only it's not just agree it's also agree allied and food processing there is a whole lot of value addition technology that is available so when students look at it from a career perspective I think they should go beyond formlands they should think beyond production and they should think pre post and then the value addition and then you know comes a whole lot of global opportunities. So I probably pause here and uh >> yes thank you. Thank you. So my next question is to Dr. Liners as as uh Miss Puna pointed out uh students need to have a systemic understanding of what is agriculture what are its opportunities and all. So now the talk of the town is multidisciplinary educations. So be it B Tech, MTech or MS courses uh see this is minor specialization uh to prepare students towards AI, robotics, remote sensing and carbon markets uh in farming and agriculture practices and several universities including you have these incubation centers to help students uh to materialize their uh ideas. So uh as as an an experienced academic what do you think is the biggest mindset gap uh in engineering students wanting to build for agriculture and how can we fix it?

[00:25:28]Uh could you could you please uh tell us uh how these new innovations in the engineering and technological fields can uh link uh with agriculture and farming practices.

[00:25:42]>> Good morning. um aspiring students and parents. This is Dr. Lenus, dean of college of engineering at SRM.

[00:25:52]So the point is agriculture which was initially at one point like agriculture is a standalone field and engineering to some extent was supporting but now it is not like that.

[00:26:08]uh it is not only for agriculture for any field it is now multi-disiplinary say for example so the mechanical engineers are playing a very big role as far as the harvesters the autonomous tractors and other things are concerned likewise different types of sensors are being used electrical electronics engineers a IML IoT and other things particularly when we talk about the multi-disiplinary uh approach. So, BTE, MTech and MS programs in the modern scenario are mostly related to computer science, artificial intelligence and uh machine learning and this is forming the base for smart agriculture. So without this the smart agriculture will not be there.

[00:26:59]as per NEP 2020 also you can have a mainstream course like uh computer science with AI and a smart agriculture as a minor. So this is one area where the new educational system is moving towards and as I pointed out no engineering field is a standalone field now and IoT for example uh it connects the entire system even for the tractors harvesters or graders or whatever it may be IoT plays a big role. So the engineers who are coming out of uh the present institutions with a smart agriculture combo or a robotics and automation combo for agriculture will be very very useful.

[00:27:48]And another thing is aeronautical and robotics. Now we are talking about drones. So drones play a very big role as far as the agriculture field is concerned. So say for example in our barra where our agriculture college is located we have computer science electronics and drone technology centers. This is a I mean uh sharing of idea between the students of these courses and if a student is doing computer science they'll be given some exposure to the agricultural field and agricultural students working on uh the field are given exposure to IoT a IML and the drone technology and we know that sir was pointing out that sorting sorting this thing with image processing technology technology now even crops the diseases are identified with image processing technology with the help of AI. So this is how the present day technology is aligning towards agriculture and when uh within a campus if all these facilities are available students can complement each other with the knowledge of one field into the other one that's a big advantage of institutions like SRM institute of science.

[00:29:09]>> Thank you. Thank you sir. Now let me come to Dr. Jawal. So uh Dr. Ina spoke about the uh new uh technological uh innovations that uh could could help students of both uh tech technology stream and agriculture stream uh so that they can help the society uh to ensure this application of this new technology. So uh another issue we have been talking about was this climate smart agriculture. Uh Dr. Lenus has spoken about drawn services. So with this uh agreed fintech uh booming, what areas do you think have the highest demand supply gap uh for skilled uh uh talent right now? As a person who has been working on both both in agriculture and it's linked to technology, what do you think where is the gap at the moment?

[00:30:09]>> Thank you all. I am professor Joharal.

[00:30:12]Basically I'm a horiculturist.

[00:30:15]So as I envisaged this agriculture without engineering technology is not economical and it's not entrepreneur oriented business. The agriculture should be shifted to business oriented one. In that way we have to infuse both agriculture as well as engineering technology. For example, the computer engineer is required for the creation of the precision and smart forming system.

[00:30:44]The IT engineer is required for data collection and analysis. The mechanical engineer is very much required for developing small tools, bigger tools for for mechanization. And the post technology engineer is very much required for develop lot of post technology and value addition. and civil and structural engineers are very much required for construction of green houses, irrigation systems and soil conservation methodology and other things. Similarly, the aeronautic engineers is very much nowadays required for drone technology development. These are all very much linked with agriculture fusing with engineering technology. Here today's agriculture is undergoing a major technological transformation but only the biggest challenges in the technology adoption is processing faster than skilled workforce development. The demand supply gap for the talent is particularly visible in several engineering and agreech domains.

[00:31:44]The first one is precision farming and digital farming. We are already the developed countries are started working on that. Of course in India also we started working on that and the lot of constraints the fragmentation of land and a shift has to be taken from far forming system from the forming system means because of the small holding we need to work on collective forming system and introduce cooperative farming system um corporate forming system and contract forming system. The contrary farming system is very well introduced in agricultural rather than agriculture crops in horiculture crops because the horiculture crops are low volume high value crops and here it is very well worked and systematic production is very well taken as Dr. Mr. Madame Pura pointed out the effective supply chain management system has been developed in the high value crops. And the second thing the technology is very much required. We all thinking about start producing the quality produce. For quality produce we need to think about high-tech horiculture as well as in agriculture also. The one of the important tool is slowly we have to shift to protected cultivation where lot of our young agree as well as the engineering graduates can be employed and in a low volume the high value crops can be produced and they can very well generate income as a self-employment or otherwise employment opportunities can be created and in that way already we started teaching the uh the modern horiculture particularly In the area of greenhouse technology where we can the high value crop particularly we all know that already we prove in that cut flowers beyond our use we started exporting flowers like rose towards Valentine day and a lot of areas have been identified in India carnations highend liiums other high value flower crops have been started growing apart from that recent past we entered into the exotic fruits like strawberry production um the kinos and other high value fruits also. And again in vegetables the capsicums all the hypermarket supermarket is very well reaching and the orchids we started producing and the zucchini a type of cucumber we started producing in the protected cultivation and the cherry tomatoes all these crops are actually we are very fastly moving. The thing is we have to train our graduates with the agriculture graduates should know about engineering technology. Vice versa the engineering graduates should also know about the agriculture technologies. Then only they can jointly take this know agriculture as a entrepreneurship is possible the technologies available. The thing is we have to take the things practically into application.

[00:34:50]Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Javal. Uh so uh it is important that there should be training. It's not just for students but also for farmers. So let me go back to uh Dr. Tingra. Uh so you talked about data. So uh now people say that data is the new fertilizer. Uh but our small holder farmers have no access to this data or its management.

[00:35:15]So how can uh we build as a nation uh this lowcost rugged um internet of things sensor networks that work uh in Indian field conditions um uh without uh reliable we don't have much I mean there are issues of power connectivity and all so uh another aspect that aligns with data is that how do we address uh this uh questions about around data ownership uh algorithmic bias uh and crop advisory and drone surveillance in our farmlands. So on this question, what are your thoughts and particularly when the government is uh promoting uh cooperative and collective agriculture uh to address the farm crisis? What is the role of data in this? What are your views?

[00:36:10]>> Is a very important question. uh already there is lot of data on uh farmers which is available.

[00:36:18]Apart from that uh the government has also digitized the land data. So land parcels and what are the crops own that is also digitized. So now the agencies which deal with the farmers which are these agencies who are extending credit to the farmers who are selling inputs to the farmers like fertilizers, chemicals, pesticides and then the agencies or the traders who are buying the produce from the farmers. So all these they need this data what is being produced by a particular person, how much is the quantity and uh what is the availability. So these people are utilizing this data to target the required customers. Like if they want to reach out to the farmers with a technology, the input supplier, if there is an input supplier who has some insecticides and pesticides or a person who is offering machines from the custom hiring centers or there are entrepreneurs who are offering drones uh to provide the service to the farmers.

[00:37:20]So they are trying to access this data.

[00:37:23]Apart from this, this data is also being used by the government in its initiative on Bhatw Vistar. So people can check that batwist. So it is being uh it is a beginning. So initially it is giving information to the farmers on the government schemes. So it's a two-way communication where the government tries to find out what are the needs of the farmers and then the schemes they are introduced and the farmers can access the important information about the various schemes which are there for them so that they can take that benefit. The other thing is that our farming community is growing old. The youngsters are not so experienced. So that kind of a wisdom if the youngsters are going into farming that wisdom is required. So now the package of practices are there because this country is very vast divided into different agroclimatic regions. Uh the needs of the farmers in Punjab and Maharashtra Tamil Nadu they're growing different crops in different areas. So they are different.

[00:38:26]So area wise agroclimatic region wise cropwise advisories through chat bots have been developed. So farmers can input their queries in their local language. So they're trying to use all these technologies of natural language processing, AI and data analytics. So even a farmer can put it in Hindi or Tamil or Canada and then get a response in his language in his or her language.

[00:38:52]The other thing where data is helping us then what happens finally when the farmer produces we provide the input we give if the farmer is unable to get remunerative price the profit he is not making so that is the right now the biggest challenge that the farmer should get remunerative prices of their hard work the labor they have put in the soil and the fields they have used the inputs they have put in their agriculture if they don't get the price of their produce remunerative price at the right time then all this effort done goes waste and they will get discouraged. So FPOS's and the government has tried they have also the government has created ODC open network for digital commerce and there are agencies which are trying to help uh FPOS's and other farmers they can sell their produce directly to the consumers agricultural produce marketing committee acts I think some modifications have been done so that they can marketing of this produce becomes easier and transportation and logistics can be handled very well. So if I have the proper production data I can see that there is no glut and then there is a market demand the produce can be routed to those areas. So that data and uh the availability of data related to farmers as well as the soil, the water available, the electricity available, what kind of input suppliers are available just like uh now we are finding like Amazon and some other Indian grown companies they are providing us the we can order online and get our stuff done. So this data is also very important in say hiring the machines. Some startups have also started providing labor force organizing the labor through these portals so that they can people can access if I'm a farmer in a remote area and if I need farming uh help so I can get the another thing this data will help is in when we are putting science and technology into agriculture. If I buy something and if my stuff if my machine is not working if my motor is not working I have to get it repaired. So repair and maintenance will be a big issue which can be solved using the data and using the trained manpower.

[00:41:11]So I will suggest that now the youngsters are trying to enter into thinking of making carriers. So there are certain opportunities which have been missed right. So this is like providing machinery, providing repair and maintenance workshops, maybe the mobile vans they can have. They're there in many of the communities and now we have internet and connectivity. as a farmer I can just put in my need that my motor has gone out of order so someone can come and repair. So then this data internet and everything that's going to transform our agriculture in a big way and then there are many other things which our students aspiring student they miss lot of things are around testing and evaluation like food testing has last 15 years food testing has been uh uh made mandatory by the ministry of health and family welfare and a lot of testing labs have come up uh testing for food safety not for quality quality ity testing is another aspect. So there also this data and other things they are very helpful in connecting the all the end users right from the farmers input suppliers buyers and then the people who are going to control the quality and the data ownership I am not an expert to talk on that yes we would like that this data of the farmers that remain safe it is not uh let out and it shall not be misused against them as long as it is being used for their benefit. It's okay. It shall not be used to harm the farmers or anyone involved in our overall agriculture landscape.

[00:42:50]>> Yes. Thank you. So, uh there uh Dr. Thingra has talked about the importance of data in in one sense uh it it is it may be it could be more important than agriculture than in the coming years. Uh I mean it more important than the fertilizers for agriculture in the coming years. So uh now my question is to uh Miss Puna. Uh ma'am see you you are an employer as well. Uh so uh see we we hear that there are reports that the agree startups uh in the country are struggling to hire uh uh good skilled uh people. So uh what roles uh as an employer now are you desperately looking for uh and what these colleges like SRM can produce like I mean are they field engineers, drone pilots, uh agree data analysts, supply chain managers. So what are the roles do you see to improve our agreed technological uh infrastructure uh from the perspective of a startup you are now heading and again see can these agree technologies create 1 cr highskll high jobs in the coming 10 years so which all sectors can provide these uh jobs because we our unemployment rate is stagnant but uh it is a concern for the policy makers. So can we provide more jobs in automation, processing, data, carbon export. So please uh share your uh uh thoughts on this.

[00:44:36]So uh first and foremost to address your first question I think you know I will I will talk generally about the jobs uh in this space than Samunati as an employer because our working model is we work across the value chain. Uh so you know for me I would say uh you know it is not just data we also you know there is a convergence between agree finance and uh agree technology and uh you know the core business. So there are a lot of uh high linkages that is possible in terms of creation of jobs right uh but if we have if we were to look at uh what does the field today need uh they need people who can effectively translate technology into farming language because today most of our technology requires uh you know a lot of handholding and guidance for adoption. uh a lot of startups while they are struggling to hire for innovative minds maybe because people come with a very traditional orientation towards you know these problems there is also a huge challenge in terms of okay I have come up with the technology now this technology needs translation on the job on the field so now who is going to help you know that bridge that link so that is one very important role that you know the upcoming students can play and this can become uh you know uh a a new uh layer of employment that can get created because today if you were to look at it somebody who understands the soil technology does not understand weather advisory somebody who understands weather advisory does not understand the post-h harvest technology but students today who are passing out right they can actually come with some two three combination of skills so that they can replace multiple roles and actually offer a combined offering and in India today Samati works extensively uh you know we believe in the power of aggregation so We extensively work with farmer collectives and the registered number of FPCs alone are about 44,000 plus. Even if we say hypothetically only 50% of them are active and functioning, we are still talking about 22,000 FPOS that can actually uh you know adopt these technologies which means there is a huge demand and agriculture is evaluated as a 1 trillion uh dollar opportunity in India which means you know that is the kind of uh opportunities that can be created but today what is the major problem? The major problem is affordability because technology is kind of coming up in smaller pockets which becomes you know difficult to scale and there is a lot of manual data and you know data quality issues that are there which means you know we are also talking about agriculture absorbing some of these you know graduates and other diploma holders who can actually play a role and build the base for future systems. But can it create a 1 cr job uh 1 cr job opportunities? Yes. But 1 cr as a paycheck if people are expecting comparing it to let's say a very hyped software job that is also possible in agriculture if we bring in a combination of carbon sustainability and future focused uh because this will be a long long-term game uh right and there are you know multiple newer startups that have come up you know there is a startup that is solving for the pollination problem because as the country is growing so you know there are very very smaller pockets very niche segments and you know there are segments like I keep saying bio energy you know India has a larger mandate now we have the net zero goal there is a lot of aspiration so energy professionals and engineering professionals need to come together to be able to solve for it so agriculture is no more only you know looking at field engineers and drone specialists we have to actually move beyond but even drone specialists are not there today right so we have to start and address those basic problems while at the same time solve for the future uh and you know there is a whole lot of job creation that is possible in especially you know food security wastage prevention and post-h harvest. So I'm I'm sure you know not just 1 cr we can actually cater to a hu whole lot of unemployment problem if we solve it at their you know education level itself.

[00:48:37]>> Yes. So proper planning would help agriculture to remain as uh the largest employer but with uh more income generation and accommodating more educated people in that in its fold. Uh Dr. Lenus so with that note I would like to ask you a specific technological uh question. See this uh climate resilience uh is uh now an engineering problem. So uh could you tell us what are the two or three emerging technologies uh an academia can suggest to help small holding farmers of say farmer of two to three acres be it in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Punjab or Kerala to adapt to this erratic monsoons and heat stress and depletion of groundwater level. uh so uh in in your notice uh what uh what are these two three emerging technologies that would help uh the Indian farmer to uh challenge these situations.

[00:49:46]>> So the the thing is uh data analytics is a very big area in this uh thing. So predictive modeling so there are several models available. weather models and the satellite picture modeling that is very very important because once if you have clear models for a particular season particular region then it will be very useful for the farmers to plan. So at times we are facing very serious problem like towards the end of the the harvest there is a big uh change which uh a rain or something like that which totally I mean destroys the entire crop. So the data analytics and cloud computing play a very big role with the predictive models and other things and uh the satellite data available for the season for a particular region. So that is playing another very big role, sustainable resource management. The benefits are climate resilience, sustainable production, reduced environmental impact and other things. So these models are going to be very very helpful for this computer science engineer with data science, data analytics, cloud computing and that background with an agricultural knowledge combined together. Uh he is he or she is going to be of great use for this type of uh activity.

[00:51:26]>> Thank you. Uh thank you Dr. Lenus. Now professor jahalal see precision farming is a subject that is close to your heart. So though it is it is a technology that often uh says on inputs but uh the adoption it's very low throughout the country though as proh Dr. Dinghra explained there have been attempts uh by the governments and by the uh institutions uh universities and IC to uh reach out to farmers and to tell them about this precision farming technology.

[00:52:02]So uh why it is the implementation is not as expected uh uh in our farms and uh do we have to redesign this uh technology to ensure that it reaches our uh farm holds? What is your view on this?

[00:52:24]>> Sir, you're muted. Sir, you're muted.

[00:52:25]Please unmute yourself.

[00:52:26]>> Yeah, the precision farming is specifically for the mainly focused on the land use efficiency, labor efficiency and input use efficiency. And in the last one decade we developed a lot of precision production technologies and which can be uh transferred to the farmers. The problem is the land fragmentation. The small holding is the big issue to take the things to the farmers. That's why recent past the collective farming system is being introduced. Wherever it is being introduced the technology precision technologies is reached the farmers and the government also. For example, uh 10 years back two districts have been identified in Tamil Nadu. One is Kishnagiri and the Dhmovi districts.

[00:53:13]Both are actually extremely dry districts where the precision farming system have been introduced and through that quality produce have been produced and farmers produced companies also produced. They created the brand names for their produce and very good supply chain management was made through the officials through the universities as well as through the state government officials. Here the precision production technology we need to train the farmers and also we have to we used to call this area attracting and retaining youth in agriculture. We have to identify the youth into them. We have to give continuously training on taking the precision adoption of the precision farming technology from nursery uh to production technology to pest disease management and finally to the post technology to value addition. The production to consumption system is well to be set to the uh youth because as the negra said the the people involved in agriculture are aged people. they are not actually having the mindset to shift the traditional farming into the modern agriculture. So here we need to the already the government is through the KBKS Krishi Van Kendras we are identifying the uh youth and the youth are being trained to take up the precision farming system and starting from soil testing to adoption of the technologies it's being given but as you said the technology transfer is slow the be the government as well as the institute should take to speed up the precision production technology for adoption And the technologies already slowly we are for each aspect from consumption to production to consumption has been developed. But the thing is the adoption is being restricted and slowly uh because you know the agriculture the rate of growth when compared to any other with a lot of challenges is being taken by the farmers and the youth also having hesitation and we have to train there are lot of scope in precision not only the whole system there there are different uh things can be uh train given for as a training to the youth particularly there is a big lack in quality seeds and planting material supply. We can train the youth to go for seed production as well as the planting material production and they can start a small nursery and slowly they can grow and they can very well earn money. And second thing uh as a community nursery they can do it and again they can go for custom hering system can be very well introduced to give the small equipment to the bigger equipment to the farmers and they can use the equipments for each and every aspect to reduce the input cost as well as the uh labor use and again very well they can go for protected cultivation as I said is very well it is possible even a A person having half acre 50 cent is enough to make a continuous production and to enhance their livelihood. These are all the area they can hire the land even if they don't have land they can hire the land in these specific areas.

[00:56:29]Identification of the location is very important. If it is going rivers they will face a lot of problems and again uh input production. Now everywhere we are talking about natural farming or organic farming production for which a lot of uh biological input production is coming up. We are giving training to our students to uh develop produce the predators as well as the beneficial pathogens to control the harmful pathogens. The biological control agent production is a big area. It is being uh training is given that area we have it all includes in the precision farming and bio fertilizer production to reduce the chemical fertilizers. We have to introduce the biological fertilizers and we have to give training is a is a is a team effort. It is a I know it's a institutional effort we have to make by the institute combining with the government. Without government support we cannot actually take the things forward. We have technologies lot of technologies we developed the initute have developed ICR or state agriculture universities or in like our SR we have lot of technologies the thing is there is a um setback in transfer of technology the transfer of technology if go a free flow definitely the precision forming system will be an effective one where we can reduce all the cost towards production the big problem is the production cost is increasing In all aspect even the water is nowadays is a cost. So we have to use the right quantity of water that is called smart ag smart smart irrigation system and figation system also we are introducing and earlier the you know a single dose or double dose basic basal application and after that few days they will go for another application. Now we have standardized stage of application.

[00:58:20]Initial stage how much nutrient should be given? How much water should be given? In the middle age after 30 days or 40 days if annual crop what is the nutrition should be given before harvest how should we stop the nutrients after that we apply nutrients the plant will not take and the big problem is as puna said lot of wastage to avoid the posth harvest techn loss a preh harvest mechanism should be taken very well for example the identification of the mature fruit even fruits and vegetables is a problem and The harvest index has to be identified. We have to train the farmers at what stage the fruits and vegetables could be harvested to avoid the post harvest loss. The technology is available. The only thing it is taken and slowly we are taking the things to the farmers and the adoption level has to be increased various level.

[00:59:13]Now the interesting thing now the big to small small to big that is the perennial crops like mango big crops we are reducing into a small one and the land use efficiency as I said in one acre normally in the traditional system we used to go for 40 plants per acre now we are going for 500 plants per acre and the pre-bearing period also got reduced instead of waiting for 5 years we can in 3 years we can start harvesting fruits For example, in crop like moringa, it was a perennial. Only 40 to 50 plants can be kept in one acre.

[00:59:50]Now 500 to 600 plants and we can keep it for 3 years and single plant we can harvest nearly 300 to 400 fruits and the economically we can do you know about the as a fresh fruit as a value addition everything is possible and youth has come forward and they are involving started doing these kind of things but the uh the the rate of I mean the transformation is slow of course in the near future everything is possible and the attractive only the possible way of attracting the youth into agriculture is the only way and to train them to adopt the precision farming technology.

[01:00:27]>> Thank you. Thank you Dr. Jal. So it's everything is possible with proper backup from the governments and uh I mean proper conveying of the academic lessons to the general public. So now let us take some of these questions from our participants. Uh there's a question from Mr. Arjin Singh. He say I mean his question is about the postth harvest and storage losses. Uh so his uh his point is that uh the waste caused by pest moisture and inadequate infrastructure cost approximately 1.53 lakh crarely. So what do you think about this? If Dr. Jingra can explain uh your views about >> Oh yes it's I think it's a very intelligent question by a very in intelligent observation by the participant in 2022 we estimated it as 1 lakh 52,000 ks which is the posth harvest loss so let me first clarify there are two things what is we call it food loss or post-h harvest loss it is the produce which starts from the farmers and comes up to the retailers so this is The loss in that it could be during storage, it could be during transportation. So these are the two major reasons.

[01:01:45]The problem is that why we are having so much these are on the way down. The post-h harvest losses are coming down but still our production is increasing at a faster pace but the infrastructure to handle that is not yet ready. Now we are coming up with good roads, trucks, logistics better. So improvements are happening. We have shifted from bag storage, we are slowly shifting to bulk storage of food grains. As I earlier told now in case of food grains or pulses or oil seeds, our losses are not that high. We are like up to 5%, in fruits. In some fruits it's up to 15%, but in others it's less than that. So the situation is not very bad. uh the situation is on one way. We are happy that something is happening that we are producing that is why there are losses.

[01:02:37]But apart from these losses, I would like to uh tell the participants that a lot of food we are wasting. We are buying it. We are keeping it in our refrigerators. We are cooking it in our kitchens and we are not eating it. It is going to the dust bin. And the food waste is also our lot which is not yet recorded properly. We are trying to set up some uh study on this and we are in touch with the government that we conduct some study through corporate social responsibility funds and others.

[01:03:08]But food wastage if you look around when you're in the hostel if you look around when you go to the restaurants if you are eating whatever you are buying are you eating or are you wasting something in leaving something in the plate. So through this webinar I will request all the participants to watch where this loss is happening. Food waste at least they can control and the other thing is our uh farmers and all the labor force which is involved in handling the produce is not trained. We are also putting it that apart from infrastructure which is required we also need to train our manpower which is involved. We always tell wherever we go that when we are handling fruits, vegetables, milk and meat, we treat it as like a infant. But our people they will just throw it. They will throw the carrots, they will throw the potatoes, they will throw the bags of onions. We are not yet providing anything to carry.

[01:04:03]They're carrying it in the most of our workforce is carrying it on our heads.

[01:04:08]They're not even providing wheelbarrows or some kind of equipment to lift that weight and uh load the trucks and unload the trucks. Whenever I'm in discussion with some of the niti people also that I tell that we have not yet we're talking about this but we our fruit and vegetable markets if you see the kind of technological interventions we have not done much and whenever it comes we put all the onus on our farmers. Whenever I go to the meeting I said no I don't want to put the onus on the farmers the onus is on the people who are buying the produce who are using the produce who are making profit out of that and let me tell all the participant that the farmer gets say only 10 to 15% and rest of the money if I'm buying something some fruits in 100 rupees a kg maybe the farmer only gets 15 to 20 rupees and as pura has told of the aggregation I think that is going to change that a lot when the farmers they get aggregated they can have their say. they can adopt the technology and maybe the FPOS's will be taking some steps to uh introduce some simple things like wheelbarrows or some tables or some uh push carts so that the whenever we are pushing and pulling this uh material food stuff we are handling it gently and carefully and all these interventions are required more storage spaces we we load the tomatoes in the truck like anything we don't use crate So the self load will also be spoiling.

[01:05:40]When we talked to some of the entrepreneurs, they said it doesn't matter me. I will be taking the tomatoes, taking it to the vegetable market. If some are lost, the supply will be less, the price will go up, I will make the money. But not not bothering about the loss. And then another thing in fruits and vegetables is that proper harvesting that Dr. Joyal is also there as a horiculturist. What is the right time to harvest that produce? Whether we have the tools and equipment now we have given some tools and equipment but training the farmers that becomes individual farmers that becomes a problem. But uh in horiculture in India now there is aggregation I will call we used to call it clusters. So when there are clusters of farmers so somewhere there is a cluster people are cultivating onions. So the farmers and the labor force are trained on that and then there are storage systems or onions are coming up. Similarly there are areas where tomatoes are being cultivated. So we can introduce the technologies and we can train the manpower over there. What is the right time for harvesting the tomato and then how to aggregate it, how to load the it in the crates and how to put it in the trucks and then transport it. So we I think we need a lot of uh human intervention, trainings, capacity building as well as the uh establishment of new infrastructure because new infrastructure costs money and no one wants to invest money. Uh some of the student if they have the land they can put up uh grain storage structures, they can put up cold stoages. lot of subsidies available and then the government is ready to hire these facilities to store fruits and vegetables, grains and other stuff.

[01:07:24]>> I think it's a good question and very important at the moment. Another point I will take one more minute is uh we are bringing lot of produce uh raw produce to our kitchens. The processing level in India is less. So when the raw produce will travel a long distance so trying some losses will be more. It is also depending on our food habits. If we have more of food processing in the rural catchments and then the processed product where the shelf life increases is then transported to the end users or the consumers who are not producing then some to some extent we can also reduce these post-h harvest losses and sometimes these are inevitable because food commodities are life materials.

[01:08:09]they're respiring. As long as we are not providing them proper environment, some water loss, some physiological weight loss in weight will happen and that is inevitable. We cannot do anything about it. It is very difficult to keep it quality.

[01:08:25]>> Thank you. Thank you sir. Uh so now what uh one participant Mr. Aro Sahi has asked a question probably Dr. Jawal can he has partially explained that but still how is AI being applied in precision farming especially in crop disease detection and how can it help the environment that is the question mic is uh >> yeah where is the question >> where is the question >> yeah a how AI is being applied in precision farming Especially in crop disease detection. How can it help?

[01:09:07]>> Yeah, the precision farming is inclusive of smart agriculture.

[01:09:12]Actually the smart agriculture is use of iote in agriculture.

[01:09:17]Particularly it is mainly used for smart irrigation that is use of micro irrigation for the specific crops as well as the sensor based agriculture.

[01:09:28]Nowadays the sensor used sensors are used for the prediction of the soil condition soil moisture and in advanc stage it is sensors are used for the prediction of uh pest and disease uh movement also. So it is also used in the monitoring the weather forecasting and the livestock uh monitoring and also used of the greenhouse automations. You know precision farming is slightly now changing to the smart agriculture.

[01:10:05]DH I would like to add something on this disease identification.

[01:10:11]>> Yes please.

[01:10:12]>> Uh uh under ICR we have Indian Agricultural Statistical Research Institute in New Delhi. They have developed an Android app AI disk.

[01:10:22]uh it is available on Android play store and there are plenty of these apps available. One more reliable one is plantics. It is from Germany. It is by one of the input suppliers for control of diseases. So the farmers can take a picture load the picture on this app and the app takes this picture analyzes it using uh certain machine vision models at the back end and then gives the response. So the accuracy in some crops and some diseases it has reached up to 90% level in some it may be less but it is a good tool for the farmers to identify the diseases >> and a lot of work is going on using computer vision.

[01:11:09]>> Yes. Uh Dr. Lenus uh here is a question for you from one of these participants Shrii. Uh she's asking how can artificial intelligence reduce crop failure in smallcale farming.

[01:11:25]>> Uh how artificial intelligence will reduce >> reduce crop failure in smallcale farming?

[01:11:32]>> The thing is see all these things are predictions. So they have models for everything. See even the leaf even the color of the leaf question the the non diseased crops and each and every thing can be analyzed and it can be quickly communicated to the farmer that there is a problem okay so so that is how the smart farming is helping all these things are resulting in smart farming so quickly this is conveyed as Dr. pointed out. So these are all communicated to the the farmers immediately when there is a problem through apps or through other means. So immediately the farmer can act on that.

[01:12:24]So this is how it is done. The artificial intelligence is helping uh identification very fast and drones can be used here for imaging.

[01:12:35]So that also helps.

[01:12:37]>> Thank you. Thank you sir. My last question will be from uh participant Wyel who is asking maybe Pam ma'am can attempt this it's an interesting question he's asking we say that AI is replacing humans and if that is the case will there be as much space for humans to get high paid jobs in agriculture with the AI intervening in agriculture what is your view on this >> see first and foremost there's somebody who needs to develop these solutions Right? While AI is facilitating a lot of development, there is still a human centered innovation that is required because we can't just like that you know come up with a solution in agriculture.

[01:13:20]Having said that uh wherever you know currently there is a lot of menial labor uh the work that is happening uh you know through humans which can be replaced by machines. That is where I would see you know a is complimenting uh like you know just the previous question earlier what used to happen if there was a pest attack the farmer will have to take the crop sample to the local KVK then the KVK will give the diagnosis they will give the prescription and then they will take it to an input shop or somewhere buy the you know requisite chemicals or uh you know whatever that is required and then go back to the field in all of this they will lose about 5 seven days what A is trying to do is minim imize that loss. A is not replacing that activity. What it is doing is it is trying to kind of you know crunch the time and uh uh you know reduce and make it more efficient and sustainable so that you know more can be done with limited time. But it is left to us humans to decide where we want AI to take over and where we want to kind of you know use our uh uh intelligence effectively because today what AI does not have it is again modeling based on whatever is currently recorded right and in the space of agriculture there's still a lot left to be done so I would say this generation of graduating students or who students who are getting into campus have nothing to fear in terms of are there enough jobs if let's say this generation creates enough and more technology solutions the upcoming generations need to wonder as to now are am I just going to be deploying these or where will the incremental innovation come from but I'm sure we will have more problems to unlock by then so uh I don't see there is any threat per se but yes uh like I said earlier you know high paying job is left to how I am going to utilize that innovation how I am going to superimpose three four things in the same place so that you know I can leverage uh both uh you know the knowledge and also diversify the income stream from uh uh the activity that is happening in agriculture.

[01:15:21]>> Thank you. So like you said there are many challenges but there are much more possibilities for the younger generation >> opportunities >> opportunities to address uh these issues and to be part of the progress of the society as a whole. So uh there are many more questions. There are 40 questions I can see here. But uh unfortunately due to the positive of time we we may not be able to uh uh take these questions at the moment. We will try and answer these questions separately and we'll uh taking the inputs from our panelists. We will try to uh answer you as early as possible and uh so now we we'll have to conclude this session. uh it was an very engaging conversation with the panelists here and very valid questions were uh posed to them. So I on behalf of the organizers I uh thank Dr. Dinda Dingra for participating in this uh discussion and giving his valuable inputs. I thank Miss Puna Pushkila to get her time out of her busy schedule to uh attend this brief seminar and uh I also thank uh Dr. Linus Ju Martin and Dr. Johal M though they are part of our SRM community. Uh they uh gave us uh the best of inputs on uh uh the social issues uh regarding agriculture the challenges we are facing uh in the sector and all and I thank all the participant once again. I thank all the viewers who has viewed this uh discussion uh in our social media platforms. Thank you. Thank you everyone once again. Thank you.

[01:17:03]>> Thank you.

[01:17:04]>> Thank you. Thank you everyone.

[01:17:06]Thank you.

[01:17:07]>> Thank you.