Experts dwell on precision agriculture

Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, October 14

Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), in collaboration with the Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers (ISAE), inaugurated the the 8th Asian-Australasian conference on precision agriculture today at Dr Manmohan Singh Auditorium, PAU.

The four-day conference will be attended by more than 300 delegates from Japan, Korea, Malaysia, China, the US, Europe, Canada, Russia, and representatives from industry and farmers from across the country. The conference, which is being held in India for the first time, is designed to be a collaborative effort with capacity-building on potential adoption of precision agriculture technologies in the Asian-Australasian region and around the world.

In his inaugural address, the chief guest, Prof Raj Khosla from Colorado State University and founding president of the International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA), drew attention towards unprecedented human capacity to produce, consume and waste food, which would lead to food shortages in the near future. In this regard, he dwelled on the need for a shift in agricultural practices towards precision farming so as to conserve the environment. He shared his vision of developing Scale-Independent Precision Agriculture (SIPA) through discussions during the conference, while outlining how the 5Rs in precision farming — right time, right place, right amount and right manner — contribute towards successful implementation of the revolutionary technique.

Prof James Lowenberg-DeBoer, president, International Society of Agricultural Engineers, briefed the participants about various agricultural organisations around the world and activities undertaken by them from time to time. He said the ISAE was focused towards precision agriculture and conducted conferences across the globe.

Indra Mani, president, Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers, called for team work among scientists, industry, corporates and policy makers for taking precision farming to the fields of Indian farmers. This complimentary approach was not just important in the wake of the changing agricultural landscape, but was the key to increasing farm productivity and sustainability, he added.

Gajendra Singh, patron, Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers and former DDG (Engineering), ICAR, applauded the efforts of manufacturers of farm machinery who were responsible for taking technology to the fields of farmers and took real time feedback from them. He discussed the importance of time window for seeding, irrigation, field monitoring and harvest in making farming more profitable, while stressing on the right amount and quality of agricultural inputs. All three, he informed, were location and commodity specific. “The objective of the conference is to brain storm the use of technology such as big data, GPS, drones, machine learning and robots to make farming sustainable and profitable for the farmers,” Singh remarked.

Baldev Singh Dhillon, Vice-Chancellor, PAU, highlighted the role of PAU in green revolution and briefed about university’s contribution in developing 45 per cent of the farm machinery being uses across the country at present. He dwelled on the utility of precision farming to increase productivity, profit and sustainable ecosystem. He hailed it for helping conserve water, improving soil health, delivery of agrochemicals and predicting weather disturbances. Dhillon also addressed the challenges involved in adoption of precision farming by farmers due to small field size. He said the machines should be cost effective, keeping in mind cultural aspects with complete technical support to farmers, for carrying out pilot studies, along with sensitising farmers to pitfalls of unregulated inputs.

Apart from technical sessions on disruption technologies in precision agriculture, digital agriculture through industry revolution, technological Interventions for paddy straw management, advanced machinery for precision agriculture, the conference will also include field trips to view practical examples of ongoing precision agriculture in India. Presentations from keynote presenters invited from various countries include a world view, diversity and advancement, protected cultivation, automation, hands-free robot fields, proximal and remote crop sensing. It will cover a range of needs of farmers and growers to be informed of the latest developments and application of precision agriculture. This conference will offer unique ways to farmers to grow the network of people interested in practical adaptation of precision agriculture technologies in India, Asia and beyond.