The goal of this project is to develop, integrate and demonstrate a scalable prototype of a precision agriculture data analytics platform (FEED) for the Indian agriculture market. FEED will be a “first-of-its-kind” precision agriculture platform for crop growth and yield forecast, fully relying on non-interpolated EO data and crop type and soil reference data (e.g., crop growth models, soil and water requirements databases). The FEED platform will be built using our core innovation in self-learning-based AI powered forecasting engine technology that develops, trains and validates models with BIG DATA from different sources like Earth observation satellites, and databanks of soil, water resources and crops. Our FEED platform will support farmers in their farm management processes in order to help them in achieving maximal yield at a lower cost. FEED will help in optimizing fertilization and lower associated costs to farmers, while minimizing pollution and environmental damage.
OVERVIEW
Our prototype will combine a short-to-medium-term intelligent weather forecasting atmospheric module that uses Earth-observation satellite data to forecast local weather conditions with high resolutions. Further, it integrates an irrigation and fertigation schedule module that estimates water and nutrient demands of the targeted crops at each stage of its growth, based on weather and dynamic estimations of crop growth requirements. Finally, using all these inputs from weather to crop growth requirements (water and nutrients) and crop market economics, FEED will deliver forecasts of crop growth, yield as well as operational recommendations to farmers such as fertilization and water resources needs for optimal crop yield.
Within this action, we will deliver a prototype along with a business/exploitation plan and an impact study assessment on farming operations, planning, economics and most importantly on the environment. Our prototype will be developed based on requirements collected from an end-user - one of India´s largest agriculture association with a network of more than 2 million farmers. Our end goal is to fully develop and roll-out a precision agricultural analytics platform tailored for the Indian agriculture market initially, with potential for replication to EU and other parts of the world in further stages.