Page 26 - Banking Finance May 2023

ARTICLE

THE ROLE OF ARTIFICIAL

INTELLIGENCE IN

REVOLUTIONISING

AGRICULTURE IN INDIA: A

LOOK AT THE LATEST

ADVANCEMENTS AND USE

CASES

griculture has been one of the most and with food demand projected to leap by 35%-56% in that
A and the advancements in technology have resources like water and farmable land scarcer. From
time. And that's not to mention climatic changes that make
fundamental practices that sustains human life,
leveraging computer vision technology for crop and soil
made it possible to optimize the processes
involved in Agriculture and allied activities. India's backbone monitoring to disease detection and predictive analytics, the
is still its farmers. Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds the key to agriculture industry is entering a whole new phase of
revolutionising the lives of farmers in India and has been one evolution-thanks to AI.
of the latest technologies that have gained significant
Not only is there potential, but also rapidly growing
recognition in the agricultural sector.
interest and investment:
Forbes reports that global spending on "smart"
There's no doubt that crop yields, quality, and labour
agriculture, including AI and machine learning, is
practices are more efficient now than they were 50 years
projected to triple to $15.3 billion by 2025.
ago. However, there's still a major need and scope for
improvements. The global human population is exploding, Research suggests that the market size of AI in
with an estimated 9.9 billion of us on the planet by 2050 agriculture should expect a compound annual growth
rate (CAGR) of 20%, reaching $2.5 billion by 2026.
Finance Minister Sitharaman, in her speech during budget
2023-24, also mentioned building a "digital public
infrastructure" for agriculture to enable "inclusive, farmer-
centric solutions through relevant information services for
crop planning and health, improved access to farm inputs,
credit and insurance, help for crop estimation, market
intelligence, and support for growth of Agri-tech industry

24 | 2023 | MAY | BANKING FINANCE