Protecting against heat waves: Precision agriculture can help Indian farms tackle climate change – Sustainability News

By Ashish Dobhal

The Indian Meteorological Department’s forecast for a normal monsoon in 2024 will have been a welcome change for IndiaThe country’s farmers, but the country’s agricultural lands, will nevertheless have to adapt to overcome the ongoing existential threat of climate change.

From heatwaves and unusual rainfall to strained resources, India’s agricultural sector is increasingly at the mercy of extreme weather events.

These vagaries of the weather are already affecting yields. For example, Indian rice production will decline for the first time in eight years. Similarly, wheat stocks at the Food Corporation of India fell below 100 million tonnes for the first time since 2018. These production declines threaten food production at a time of unprecedented global demand.

As climate change becomes real, here to stay, and set to get worse, farmers have no choice but to change the way they operate so they can grow more food with less, under harsher conditions than before.

They must adopt the practice of precision agriculture. Precision agriculture is a calibrated approach to agriculture using smart technology to calculate the precise amount of inputs a crop needs.

The growing democratization of new-age technology such as artificial intelligenceMachine learning, satellite and drone technology and sensor-based Internet-of-Things enable precision agriculture and provide a highly feasible and sustainable solution to the challenges the agricultural sector faces due to climate change.

Precision agriculture provides farmers with information. For example, satellite technology can help them monitor changing weather patterns in real time so they can then plan their sowing schedule.

For example, farmers can delay planting rice in nurseries in the event of a late monsoon so that the crop is ready to be transplanted into the fields just as the rains begin.

Drones can also scan for the start of a disease or pest outbreak, allowing farmers to nip the threat in the bud. Together with sensors, they can also help monitor soil health so that farmers can plan appropriate nutritional interventions.

The amount of nutritional supplements, fertilizers, insecticides and water can be calculated to an unprecedented level of accuracy. Such an approach not only protects the health of the soil, but also extends its fertile, fertile life of the soil, but also saves resources.

This is especially crucial in the world we live in with a shortage of resources and water.

India, for example, is currently in the grip of a crippling heat wave. According to the Central Water Commission, water levels at 150 major reservoirs in India were already at 35 percent of their storage capacity in the first week of April during the summer.

So how can we give our crops the water they need without further depleting our reserves?

By using as much water as necessary. Precision agriculture makes that possible.

In addition to the precision approach, there are other steps farmers can take to make farms more sustainable with fewer resources. They can switch to climate-resilient crop varieties. They can also turn to water and resource conservation products, such as Zeba from UPL.

Zeba, a patented sustainable super-absorbent product that is biodegradable, increases water retention. Adopting Zeba can lead to a 15-20% increase in water efficiency compared to traditional irrigation methods, benefiting crops such as sugarcane and groundnuts. Likewise, subsurface irrigation systems have demonstrated their effectiveness in delivering water directly to the root zone, reducing water waste and maximizing crop yields.

Zeba was used on 1.2 lakh hectares of agricultural land in India by 2023 and saved 72 billion liters of water. Furthermore, the use of Zeba led to a 25% reduction in fertilizer use while saving Rs. 1,500 per hectare of electricity and Rs. 1,000 per hectare in labor. In total, Zeba has helped farmers earn an additional income of Rs. 22,000+ per hectare at an additional expenditure of less than Rs. 5,000.

There is no doubt that agriculture faces challenges. India not only feeds its own population, but is also a major food producer for the world.

As global demand for food rises, agricultural lands are being called upon to produce more food than ever before, at a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult to grow that food. But the challenge is not insurmountable. The move to a more sustainable, resource-responsible and technology-driven approach holds the promise of ushering in a new wave of prosperity for our agricultural lands.

The author is CEO of UPL SAS

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