United News of India – Online

The Department of Agriculture, Government of Telangana and the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Wadhwani AI) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to deploy AI solutions for the benefit of Cotton farmers in the state. Wadhwani AI has existing MoUs with the Department of Information Technology, Electronics & Communication (ITEC), Telangana to facilitate the AI based solutions and with Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University (PJTSAU) to help with Agri science research, monitoring and deployment in the state.

Rising Kashmir – Online

Our economy’s backbone is still the primary sector. The number of families directly or indirectly affiliated with this sector of the economy may outnumber all others. Unfortunately in our valley, it has remained neglected in terms of both marketing of the produce and the necessary technological inputs. Over the years, the introduction of biotechnological advances has revolutionised the agricultural sector especially in the developed countries. Biotechnological innovations have resulted in a massive increase in agricultural input all over the world. It is a fact that agriculture has remained a constant interest of scientists in the developing world, from specialized seeds to farming methods and irrigation.

India Times – Online

While browsing through Linkedin, today, I stumbled upon a post by one Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande who revealed that his organisation, Deshpande Foundation has constructed over 6000 farm ponds in India in the past five years.

He further announced that he’s working on a program to build 100,000 farm ponds in the next phase — a project that will amount to Rs 800 crores — to help farmers increase their income as well as aid in rural development.

YourStory – Online

In 1999, Rajashekhar Reddy Seelam’s father was diagnosed with cancer. Aggrieved, he decided to look into the causes behind cancer, and found that one of the causes is the consumption of adulterated food. Armed with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture and seeing how chemical usage on farms also impacted rural indebtedness, Raj decided to bring to the fore an organic food brand free of toxic chemicals.

Hindustan Times – Online

A 79-year-old genetic scientist at Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Science (SHUATS) has developed two semi-dwarf high yielding wheat varieties—SHIATS-W6 and SHUATS-W10, that are sugar free, high in nutrition, use less water and are resistant to extremes of Indian weather.

The senior scientist, Mahabal Ram, a professor (emeritus) at the institute, has also written to the UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath urging him to ensure wider use of these nutritive-rich super wheat varieties that are already notified by Central Variety Release Committee of the Union Ministry of Agriculture-New Delhi and are under limited cultivation in the state.

The Hindu – Online

Farmers in 2,800 villages across six districts in Telangana who raise cotton crop during the next kharif (vanakalam) season would have the help of information technology to predict the bollworm and other devastating pest infestations and take immediate measures to prevent crop damage to a large extent and improve income along wit the quality of the produce.

All this, deployment of traps and lures along with a mobile application developed by Wadhwani AI, would be provided free of cost to farmers as part of an agreement between the Agriculture Department and Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Wadhwani AI). While the Wadhwani AI would provide their solution (mobile app) free of cost to the State, the Indian ...