AgSpeak is there for great farmers to manage farms

AgSpeak is the multi-lingual smartphone App that helps farmers smartly manage their farms and monitor distress activities.

Who developed AgSpeak? AgSpert, an agri-tech startup which was cofounded by students of IIT Guwahati and an alumni of NIT Silchar and Dibrugarh University of Assam.

What is the special point in AgSpeak? It is a multi-lingual smartphone application that is developed with a goal of optimising the in-farm productivity through Artificial Intelligence (AI).

AgSpeak will help the farmers in making decisions and managing farm activities by the click of a single button on their smartphone or computer.

AgSpeak is there for great farmers to manage farms

Professor T.G. Sitharam, Director, IIT Guwahati launched AgSpeak recently in Guwahati.

AgSpert which brought out AgSpeak is cofounded by Mr. Siddhartha Bora (NIT Silchar alumnus), Mr. Manik Mittal (IIT Guwahati student).

Mr. Akash Sharma (IIT Guwahati student), Mr. Nitin Chauhan (IIT Guwahati student) are also the co-founders.

The other cofounders are Mr. Dhritiman Talukdar (NIT Silchar alumnus) and Mr. Kookil Pran Goswami (Dibrugarh University alumnus).

AgSpert is leading this initiative in the North-Eastern India which has untapped potential, with diverse ecosystems having agriculture as the major economic activity.

AgSpeak is multi-lingual and has an option of Assamese as well. This feature is a first among all the agri-tech applications available in the market.

Driven by hyper local crop data coming from satellite and smart IoT devices, AgSpeak considers up to 20 local crop parameters which are key indicators of their health like temperature, rainfall, sunlight hours, soil health status, among others, to alert farmers about probable crop threats in advance and suggest best practices to tackle the incoming threat, hence optimising the resources used and maximising productivity.

AgSpeak along with the IOT hardware has been tested for the past three months with 500 farmers and two tea estates.

Some of the major breakthroughs by AgSpeak were precise prediction of Blight in Potato and Tea Mosquito Bug, along with Water Stress in winter crops.

These are major reasons of woes to farmers and small tea growers of Assam and cause lakhs in crop damages if not controlled in time.

The major commercial users of the product AgSpeak include commercial plantation farms like tea, lemon orchards, grape vineyards.

The New Farm Bill 2020 is likely to boost formation of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) among general crop growers to work as a business as well which is likely to increase adaptation of paid services that comes with the mobile app AgSpeak.

There is more to AgSpeak. Nearly about 250 farmers have already been provided hands on training in utilizing the full potential of AgSpeak.

However, the user friendliness and multilingual features of AgSpeak make it extremely easy for farmers to use and seldom require training.

AgSpeak is completely free for general small farmers. There are in-app purchases like soil testing and agri-doctor consultation.

Besides this, the IOT devices can be rented on monthly or yearly purposes by commercial farms to further enhance precision farm management.

The AgSpeak has been tested with many farmers and its practical utility established.

Professor T.G. Sitharam congratulated the entrepreneurs for bringing out AgSpeak.

‘It is a matter of immense pride that our students are working to bring out state-of-the-art technology for India’s farmers.’

India is a leading agricultural country with immense potential, yet two billion people globally did not have regular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food in 2019 alone, he said.

Speaking further congratulating the young entrepreneurs who brought out AgSpeak, Professor Sitharam said to end this global starvation, we need to double agricultural productivity in the next 15 years.

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‘Unless we use technology appropriately in the agricultural sector, this would be impossible.’

Additionally, to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), we have ten more years to fulfil this SDG and to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.

In all these directions, unless new technology is used, we will not be able to succeed.

India aspires to become a US$ 5 trillion economy, and unless the younger generation of today’s India don’t stand up we cannot take on this challenge.

I’m immensely proud of our students and wish them all the best for the immense contribution they are making for the farmers of our country, he said.

Driven by hyper local crop data coming from satellite and smart IoT devices, AgSpeak considers up to 20 local crop parameters which are key indicators of their health like temperature, rainfall, sunlight hours, soil health status, among others, to alert farmers about probable crop threats in advance and suggest best practices to tackle the incoming threat, hence optimising the resources used and maximising productivity.

Mr. Manik Mittal, Chief Operating Officer, AgSpert, which brought out AgSpeak spoke about the need to use technological advancements in agriculture sector.

Technological development in the agricultural sector has been very slow, with farmers relying on traditional methods, which are getting out-dated day by day due to several factors including population growth and climate change.

We at AgSpert believe that technological intervention using Artificial Intelligence and drones will ensure food security, by increasing the productivity more than two-fold, he said.

Apart from this, the start-up which brought out AgSpeak is also focusing on a high-tech product for large commercial plantation farms.

Large plantation farms like tea, which are in abundance in North-East India, are facing a tremendous farm-labour crunch, especially post-COVID.

To address this challenge, the AgSpert is developing a unique platform for plantation farm managers to automate scouting processes and realise areas of distress like disease, pest incidence and water stress, using drones.

This technology will help the farm managers in identifying crop threats in a short period of time and take timely interventions to save the crop.

The drone monitoring system is currently in the R&D stage.

AgSpert which brought out AgSpeak is testing the product in collaboration with Assam Agricultural University and Tocklai Tea Research Institute, Assam.

These are likely to expand to several other regions and farms in the future. AgSpert which developed AgSpeak is a self-funded start-up as of now.