State to launch AI-based farming pilot project with 10,000 participants in Phase 1

Nilesh Nalawade, CEO of the Agricultural Development Trust, Baramati, spoke at the meeting about a successful AI-based sugarcane farming project undertaken in Baramati

MUMBAI: With the state’s farmers getting increasingly worried about the dipping value of major cash crops, the government has decided to focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to increase productivity in these. This was discussed in a meeting held by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday.

State to launch AI-based farming pilot project with 10,000 participants in Phase 1

Nilesh Nalawade, CEO of the Agricultural Development Trust, Baramati, spoke at the meeting about a successful AI-based sugarcane farming project undertaken in Baramati. He pointed out that based on 164 valid records from 200 farmers, the average production of sugarcane here had increased from 65.45 tonnes to 73.12 tonnes per acre. AI-based irrigation management also recorded an average water saving of 42%.

Buoyed by these encouraging results, Fadnavis ordered the agriculture department to undertake a pilot product based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Twin Learning for crop-specific studies covering cash crops such as cotton, soybean, pigeon pea, sugarcane, orange, turmeric, onion and maize. Ten thousand farmers will participate in the first phase of the project.

Digital Twin Learning in agriculture is a live, virtual model of a physical crop, field, or farm. It uses real-time data from IoT sensors, drones, and satellites to mirror and predict plant growth, soil moisture, and weather impacts.

“The pilot project should first be implemented among selected farmers and crops, and, after assessing its success, expanded across Maharashtra,” said Fadnavis. “AI-based irrigation management should also be used to reduce water consumption and production costs.”

The CM said that agriculture must adopt advanced technologies to address challenges such as climate change, water scarcity, declining soil fertility, rising pest and disease incidence, and increasing production costs. He ordered officials to collect and integrate data on crop growth, water requirements, soil moisture, weather conditions, pest and disease outbreaks, and likely yields. Machine learning will then be used to analyse the data and provide crop- and farm-specific advice to farmers.

Agriculture minister Dattatray Bharane said the project could bring about a transformation in Maharashtra’s agriculture sector, and stated that the government was committed to promoting AI-based farming.