Combining AI with GIS to solve real-time farm problems

On October 21, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Yellow Line of Chennai Metro Rail Limited, his meetings with a few startup founders during his journey from Porur to Poonamallee caught the public’s eye.

One of those who met Modi and explained about his startup was Chennai-based startup Farmwise AI founder Anand Vetrivel. That has brought focus on the startup, which began its journey with artificial intelligence (AI) for farmers. It has now expanded its operations to water, mining, agri finance, education, lands and cities.

The startup was founded to bring AI and geographical information system (GIS) together to solve real-time problems, said SK Purushothaman, chief operating officer, FarmwiseAI, which was launched six years ago.

“Long before AI went mainstream in India, the Farmwise AI team built AI-powered agriculture applications with the Tamil Nadu Agriculture Department and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), delivering direct impact to the farmers,” he told businessline in an online interaction.

Bagging TN tender

Tamil Nadu set out to give every farm a digital identity, linked to its owner and attributes. FarmwiseAI bagged the tender with an AI and GIS approach to take the State’s Field Measurement Book (FMB) records, survey records that define each subdivision’s boundaries and fix each one to real-world coordinates.

In six months, it georeferenced more than 40 million subdivision parcels, with 4.5 million-plus survey numbers, across 16,700 villages in all 38 districts of the State, achieving 97 per cent accuracy. The cost was 46 per cent lower than the manual process and connected 95,000-plus stakeholders and over 10 government bodies.

This has helped from crop identification to crop intelligence, tapping advanced geospatial AI and drone intelligence.

Expanding to Telangana

The start-up has now expanded its operation to Telangana, where it works with multiple government departments. It partners with industry experts like AI Singapore to build collaborative GeoAI technology, Tamil Nadu Agriculture University for the development of agri-based solutions specifically for Tamil Nadu, Amazon Web Service and National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD) to deliver GeoAI solution at the national level in rural, telecommunication, energy and related sectors.

It also works with ITC, University of Twente and Kerala State Electronics Development Corporation (KELTRON). It is working on a remote farmland verification pilot project for agricultural lending with Karur Vysya Bank, supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

“Using satellite or drone intelligence and data from it, we develop an intelligence platform about the requirements of a particular department. So, using the system, the department can get insights and make decision on data, previous data, data of the past few years,” said Purushothaman.

Developed 2 apps

Some of the projects the company has worked on have been completed, while at least 50 per cent has been achieved in others. For example, in the project it does for State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT), it uses its intelligence platform to identify the land, provide details of the land owner and create a feasibility report. This helps SIPCOT to offer the land to the industry, offer basic infrastructure such as power and water, and monitor the development of the industrial park in which the land is allocated.

Following its success in Tamil Nadu and Telangana, Farmwise AI is in talks with Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh government for taking up new projects.

Purushothaman said the company has developed in-house agriculture models that can predict different types of crops and crop growth state using satellite images. The models helps in understanding satellite data, which helps the company to provide advisory to farmers, which is also linked with weather reports.

Farmwise AI had developed two apps - M-Velanmai (agriculture) and AgriCart - both in partnership with TNAU. M-Velanmai delivers AI-based pest detection with expert advisory for crop protection. AgriCart can help farmers reach more buyers and avail of tractor, drone and on-demand services.

Farmers downloading M-Velanmai app can take photos of the crop they suspect of being infected and this will be detected by AI. Experts from TNAU chip in with their expertise to provide advisory for farmers.

AgriCart connects farmers with sellers of crop inputs and consumers of agri produce. It also serves as a marketplace, he said.

Meet with Modi

Besides, the company provides satellite data on demand through Agri-X and automated land intelligence via Farmplotter. Agri-X helps researchers access the right satellite datasets in the format they want, while Farmplotter classifies and plots agricultural lands using land records and geospatial intelligence.

As regards the pilot project with DST, Farmwise-AI provides geospatial intelligence for agricultural finance by verifying land for evidence-based lending and insurance. This is being done in collaboration with TNAU.

On the founder’s meeting with Modi, Purushothaman said the Prime Minister raised a lot of technical questions and asked if it could be done on an all-India basis.

Appreciating the company’s work, the Prime Minister told Vetrivel that he would provide him an opportunity at his office to pitch his plans.