Call to integrate all tech in food chain 

CII Telangana’s Agri Vision 2025 conference had stakeholders discussing strategies to make agriculture more sustainable, technology-driven and globally competitive.
| Photo Credit: Arrangement

Agriculture 4.0 requires integration of all technologies in the food chain, Group Director – Agri Sciences and Applications of ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre Vemuri Chowdary said on Tuesday.

With climate change impacting agriculture in a big way the need is to adopt farmer focused approach as opposed to a policy level approach, he said, addressing Agri Vision 2025 conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Telangana here.

He said monitoring through satellites will help in understanding the harvest progress and estimate the yield outputs which will reach the markets. Precision agriculture is predominantly for high value commercial crops and it would help in reducing the cost and increasing the yields, CII Telangana said in a release.

EY Parter and Leader- Social and Skills Sector Amit Vastyayan said technologies should be accessible to marginal farmers and women farmers. Cost, collaborations, competitiveness and commercially viable products could play a major role in driving the future of agriculture.

CII Telangana Chairman R.S. Reddy said digital innovations must go hand-in-hand with sustainable practices to address challenges like climate change, resource scarcity and market volatility. He said 86% of the farmers in Telangana are marginal farmers having an average land holding of less than 2.5 acres. Agriculture is the second largest contributor to GSDP after Services sector.

The conference brought together various stakeholders and explored strategies for making agriculture more sustainable, technology-driven, and globally competitive, CII-TG said.