India - Use of Artificial Intelligence in agricultural sector

The Government of India has employed Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods to address various challenges in the agricultural sector to aid farmers. Some of the initiatives are given below:

1. ‘Kisan e-Mitra’, an AI-powered chatbot, has been developed to assist farmers with responses to queries about the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme. This solution supports multiple languages and is evolving to assist with other government programs. At present, it handles over 20,000 farmer queries daily and so far, more than 92 lakh queries have been answered.

   
   

2. The National Pest Surveillance System, for tackling the loss of produce due to climate change, utilizes AI and Machine Learning to detect pest infestation in crop issues, enabling timely intervention for healthier crops. This tool, currently used by over 10,000 extension workers, allows farmers to capture images of pests to help them mitigate pest attacks and reduce crop losses. At present, it currently supports 61 crops and over 400 pests with approx. 1 lakh uploaded images.

   
   

3. AI-based analytics using field photographs for crop health assessment and crop health monitoring using Satellite, weather & soil moisture datasets for rice and wheat crops.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shri Ramnath Thakur in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.