Microsoft Partners Karnataka Government to Bring AI to Agriculture

To empower farmers with technology-oriented solutions like Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics, Karnataka government on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Microsoft India.

As part of the MoU, Microsoft with guidance from the Karnataka Agricultural Price Commission (KAPC), Department of Agriculture will develop a multi-variant agricultural commodity price forecasting model.

The model will consider historical sowing area, production, yield, weather datasets and other related datasets as relevant.

For this season, Tur crop has been identified for this prediction model.

"This MoU will help enable the use of intelligent technologies to deliver solutions in the agriculture sector. AI in agriculture can play a major role in the digital transformation of India," said Anil Bhansali, Corporate Vice President, Cloud & Enterprise, Microsoft India (R&D), in a statement.

The move is also aimed at using digital tools that have the potential to deliver cutting edge innovations and AI to help farmers get higher crop yields in the state.

Microsoft in collaboration with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has deployed a Sowing Advisory Service in the kharif season on a limited pilot, under the "Bhoochetana" project.

Built on the Microsoft Cortana Intelligence Suite, these technology solutions aim at promoting digital farming practices in the state.

"We believe that Microsoft's technology will support these innovative experiments which will help us transform the lives of the farmers in our state," added Dr T.N. Prakash Kammardi, Chairman, KAPC.

The ICRISAT is a non-profit organisation that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world.

"Farmers who adopted the Sowing Advisory Service have already seen yield increases by timing their crop sowing based on advanced analytics that is delivered by SMS in a timely and targeted manner to help manage risks due to rainfall variability," noted Dr David Bergvinson, Director General, ICRISAT.