AI in the Fields: How Cropin Is Transforming Agriculture
Pankajakshan, VP of Data Science and AI, on Making Smallholder Farmers Tech-Savvy
Indian farmers and agricultural workers often struggle with sustainable crop yields, exacerbated by climate change, disrupting traditional practices, yield, productivity, and profitability. Founded in 2010, Cropin - a SaaS-based agritech company - uses artificial intelligence to assist smallholder farmers with tools to improve productivity, increase yields and enhance their livelihoods.
Cropin has so far digitized 30 million acres of farmland, benefiting seven million farmers globally. Cropin Cloud provides predictive intelligence for 200 million acres of farmland globally, serving various agribusiness sectors. The company recently launched akṣara, a text-based micro language model for climate-smart agriculture. akṣara addresses the challenge of illiteracy among farmers in rural areas and provides them with agricultural information, including crop advisories, agro-climatic conditions, market prices and best practices for crop management.
"AI tools are changing farming; they are already here, and farmers are adopting them. We see a future where more and more farmers are using agricultural technology and are resilient to climate change," said Praveen Pankajakshan, vice president of data science and AI, Cropin.
In this video interview with Information Security Media Group, Pankajakshan also discussed:
- Using AI for precision farming;
- Integration of data sources such as live satellite imagery and crop models into Cropin's platform;
- Open-sourcing akṣara to democratize its access and allow customization.
Pankajakshan has more than 20 years of experience in signal and image processing, pattern recognition, and machine learning in various domains. At Cropin AI Labs, he is responsible for combining earth observations and AI science to reimagine agriculture and enable sustainable usage of land and resources.
