Tag Archives: Agriculture

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What is Animal Husbandry

A majority of the Indian population is primarily dependent on the agriculture sector with around half of the population being involved in this. Apart from the mainstream cash-cropping exercise, a majority of this sector is involved with Animal Husbandry. In India, a large number of farmers are dependent on animals for their livelihood. In addition to milk, meat, eggs, wool, and hide(skin), animals like bullock are still considered as the backbone of agriculture and serve as a major source of power and transportation for the rural population. A gross value of this sector is nearly about 25% of the total agricultural output of India. India had approximately 25 percent of the world’s cattle, with a collective herd of 193 million head. India also had 110 million goats, 75 million water buffaloes, 44 million sheep, and 10 million pigs. Milk production in FY 1990 was estimated to have reached 53.5 million tons, and egg production had reached a level of 23.3 billion eggs. Today, India has the world’s largest dairy herd (composed of cows and buffaloes), at over 304 million strong, and stands first in milk production, with 112.5 million tons of milk produced in 2009-2010.

Problems Faced by Animals During Extreme Heat

Animals naturally tend to face a lot of problems during the summer season, mainly because of the intolerable heat. Extreme heat causes significant stress for all animals and as a reason, it results in low production rate, a decrease in output and quality products, and risk of falling ill. Farmers of all type have shades to prevent their livestock from extreme weather condition, but these shades are sometimes inadequate in providing a suitable and cool environment. Further, these shelters are built on small patches of land with a high density of livestock, that is responsible for further degradation of output in production. For instance, dark skinned animals, dairy cattle, and young animals are at a higher risk of heat stress and these types of animals should be watched more closely for signs of heat stress during days of high temperature. These problems cannot be neglected in a long run and often farmers rely upon temporary solutions to resolve them. Another way to avoid the heat is to take the animals to a water body like a pond or any other large water source and leave them (like buffaloes) in water for at least 4 hours a day. The problem with this approach is that not all dairy farmers have access to a pond or a river and this method is not practical for big dairy farms.

Solar Powered Foggers: A Revolutionary Innovation for Dairy Farms

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A solar powred fogger is a simple device that takes a mixture of water and fresh air as input. These flow under pressure, through a pipe which has multiple nozzles. The resultant mixture, which is developed in a pressurized condition, is then released as mist/fog (this setup is also known as misters or mist systems). The water droplets developed by the system evaporate before they can reach to the ground. This mist form helps in reducing the overall temperature of the animal’s shed. Thus, Foggers are used to maintain humidity and control temperature in a closed environment. This helps in maintaining a suitable and comfortable environment for animals, and keeping them safe from heat strokes and other heat related issues. Overall, this helps in increased output.

Apart from serving the need of dairy farmers, these foggers have other applications as well. These include:

  •         Watering plants in Greenhouses and Poly houses.
  •         Sprinkling the pesticides.

The Solar Fogging Solution

Electricity is still inaccessible across many villages in India. Even if the villages with a proper electrical network, power is not available as per the requirement. Presently, the rural population is largely dependent on diesel for electrical needs and the same applies in the case of foggers. These foggers are primarily being run with the help of diesel as grid electricity is not available in abundance to the farmers. Solar powered foggers have a very low or negligible maintenance cost. Switching from diesel to solar is considered infeasible by many farmers as the solar systems require a high cost for initial setup. Also, during the summer season, when the requirement of these foggers is at peak, these solar powered foggers tend to work at the highest efficiency. Further, emission of smoke from diesel powered foggers can have a dangerous effect on the livestock. Solar powered foggers are safe to use with no carbon emission.

Claro Energy-ICAR Collaboration on Solar Fogger systems

Claro Energy undertook a project in collaboration with Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Claro Energy deployed a solar fogger system at the Patna campus of ICAR. ICAR had been looking for a sustainable solution to keep the temperature of their buffalo shed in control. The project site had a shortage of continuous grid electricity supply and hence deploying a fogger that runs on Grid power wasn’t helpful. Therefore, Claro Energy undertook this project of designing a solar powered fogger for ICAR. This project helped ICAR by providing a desired solution to maintain a suitable temperature in Buffalo shed. This step will result in higher milk production as compared to the past and will provide with a suitable environment for breeding as well.

The System and its Working

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The system consists of Solar Modules, DC Motor, Fogging Nozzles, and Pressure generation machine. Here Solar Modules serve as the primary source for energy requirement, converting Solar Energy to Electrical Energy. There is a Change Over Switch connected between the Solar Module and D.C. Motor, that provides the D.C. supply to the motor or other pumps. The D.C. motor has a two-way connection, one with the storage tank, where water is stored for fogging purpose and other with the Fogging Nozzles. A Fogger Machine is used to pressurize the flow of water that serves the purpose of fogging. It combines fresh air with water supply to create mist/fog. Fogging Nozzles generate water droplets that evaporate and helps in maintaining a lower temperature in the shed.

Thus, like any other agricultural necessity, a fogger is the demand of the hour and will significantly boost up the output from Animal Husbandry. Also, due to the lack of grid electricity, or to avoid the high maintenance and running cost of diesel pumps, Solar Powered foggers are the best possible solution that supports economic feasibility in a long run.

Written by: Abhishek

Edited by: Priyanka

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Indian users comprise about 30% of the total volume of the global feature phone market, making it the second largest in the specified field. In 2015, India had 720 million mobile phone users, out of which 320 million were rural mobile phone users. This estimate also included 50 million Smartphone users with access to internet. According to The Rising Connected Consumer in Rural India, a study by the Boston Consulting Group, this share of rural India will jump to 48% by 2020 . Steps taken by the Indian government recently may make this happen sooner than predicted. Digital India, launched in 2015 by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aims towards the promotion of digital literacy and creation of digital infrastructure for empowering rural communities. Considering that 58% of rural households depend on agriculture as one of their most eminent source of livelihood, the role of Digital Agriculture needs to be considered within Digital India.

The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to support the transmission of localized information and services working towards making farming socially, economically and environmentally sustainable, while contributing to the delivery of nutritious and economical food for all – this comprises Digital Agriculture. This has also led to the rise and development of mobile apps which are helping existing government schemes, and other agriculture-based information to reach farmers in rural India. This digital change is acting as a game-changer for Indian agricultural conditions.

Here’s a list of 10 mobile apps making agriculture easy –

  1.    Cover art  Kisan Suvidha

 Kisan Suvidha- screenshot

Launched by the PM Narendra Modi in 2016 to work towards empowerment of farmers and development of villages, the app design is neat and offers a user-friendly interface. It provides information on current weather and also the forecast for the next five days, market prices of commodities/crops in the nearest town, knowledge on fertilizers, seeds, machinery etc. The option to to use the app in different languages makes it more widely accessible.

 

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  1. Cover artIFFCO Kisan Agriculture 

 IFFCO Kisan- Agriculture App- screenshot

This app was launched in 2015 and is managed by IFFCO Kisan, a subsidiary of Indian Farmers’ Fertilizer Cooperative Ltd. Its aim is to help Indian farmers make informed decisions through customized information related to their needs. The user can access a variety of informative modules including agricultural advisory, weather, market prices, agriculture information library in the form of text, imagery, audio and videos in the selected language at profiling stage. The app also offers helpline numbers to get in touch with Kisan Call Centre Services.

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  1.  Cover art     RML Farmer – Krishi Mitr

 RML Farmer - Krishi Mitr- screenshot

RML Farmer is a one of its kind agricultural app where farmers can keep up with the latest commodity and mandi prices, precise usage of pesticides and fertilizers, farm and farmer related news, weather forecast and advisory. Its also provides agricultural advice and news regarding the government’s agricultural policies and schemes. Users can choose from over 450 crop varieties, 1300 mandis, and 3500 weather locations across 50,000 villages and 17 states of India. It works with the help of specific tools designed to analyze or provide information on different aspects of farming habits. Eg. CropDoc helps the farmers in identifying problems that affects their crops at the right time and suggests corrective actions; Farm Nutri provides general and personalized nutrient recommendations, which are presented in the form of a schedule of fertilizer dosage.

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  1.   Cover art    Pusa Krishi

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This app was launched in 2016 by the Union Agriculture Minister and aims to help farmers to get information about technologies developed by Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI), which will help in increasing returns to farmers. The app also provides farmers with information related to new varieties of crops developed by Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), resource conserving cultivation practices as well as farm machinery and its implementation will help in increasing returns to farmers.

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  1.   Cover art    AgriApp

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It provides complete information on Crop Production, Crop Protection and all relevant agriculture allied services. It also enables farmers to access all the information related to “High value, low product” category crops from varieties, soil/ climate, to harvesting and storage procedures. An option to chat with experts, video-based learning, the latest news, online markets for fertilizers, insecticides etc. are also available on this app.

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  1.     Cover art  Kheti-badi 
     खेती-बाड़ी Organic Farming Info- screenshot

‘Kheti-Badi’ (खेतीबाड़ी) is a social initiative App. It aims to promote and support ‘Organic Farming’ and provide important information/issues related to farmers in India. Agriculture today is heavily dependent on genetically modified seeds, chemical pesticides and fertilizers; this app helps farmers to switch their chemical farming into organic farming. However, this app is currently only available in four languages(Hindi, English, Marathi and Gujarati).

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  1.    Cover art   Whatsapp

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It may come off as a surprise to many, but one of the most widely used app for texting is bridging gaps between farmers. Departments of Agriculture of a few states have used this public platform to make groups called Progressive Farmers’ which connects sons of the soil through their android devices.  It initially started with groups of top officials with android phones and was later introduced to agricultural communities.

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  1.   Cover art     Krishi Gyan

 Krishi Gyan- screenshot

Works on a similar aspect as Whatsapp communication but is considered to be better as it doesn’t require mobile numbers of individuals to stay connected. Apart from providing general information on farming, this application enables Indian farmers to connect with Krishi Gyan experts and ask them questions related to farming, and get answers within the application through notifications. The farmers as well as agriculture enthusiasts can also share their answer with each other.

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  1.     Cover art  Crop Insurance

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The app helps farmers to calculate insurance premium for notified crops and provides information cut-off dates and company contacts for their crop and location. It can also be used to get details of normal sum insured, extended sum insured, premium details and subsidy information of any notified crop in any notified area. It is further linked to its web portal which caters to all stakeholders including farmers, states, insurance companies and banks.

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  1. Cover art     AgriMarket

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Launched along with the Crop Insurance app by the government of India, the app has been developed with an aim to keep farmers abreast of crop prices and discourage them to go for distress sales. Farmers can get information related to prices of crops in markets within 50km of their own device location using the AgriMarket Mobile App.

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Other apps like SmartCrop, Mandi Trades, Kisaan Market serve as an online marketplace providing space for farmers to sell their produce after collecting information regarding market prices and for customers to compare and buy produce. State specific apps narrow down the user base and help to provide information regarding a specific area. Farm-o-pedia for Gujarat, AgriSmart for Punjab, Krishi Suchak for Karnataka are a few examples of such apps. All these mobile apps are helping reduce transportation, corruption and transactional waste in agriculture and also offer a gateway for resource sharing for farmers. Thus, the apps are helping boost overall business performance and reducing negative environmental impacts of farming. Now, with a click of a button, farmers can access information regarding weather, dealers, market prices, plant protection, agro advisories, IPM practices etc. Thus, these advancements will definitely help bring significant change in the lives of farmers and the field of agriculture.

Written By – Prakriti Sharma

Edited By- Anirban Banerjee