But it is quite hard to implement because it is not easy to get real-time inputs about soil conditions. Farmers use their intuition when deciding to irrigate, thereby wasting water and other resources.
Rajul Patkar started thinking about low-cost sensors for agriculture when she registered for PhD seven years ago at IIT Bombay. She was in the electrical engineering department there, and working under Ramgopal Rao, now the director of IIT Delhi.
After she finished her PhD, she found that one of the technology platforms that she developed was useful for farmers. Sensors for agriculture is hard to develop, as they need to be highly specific for a job.
Without the specificity, they can provide wrong information. The sensors need to be rugged and low cost, while also consuming low energy.
Such products can be imported, but at such a high cost that farmers do not bother. “Without our own sensor,” says Patkar, “we cannot reduce the cost.”
Patkar joined with three other PhD students and another professor to form Proximal Soil Sense. The three other students have different kinds of expertise: one in signal processing, one in system integration, and another in networking.
The company has a phone-based system that has gone through field trials in IIT Bombay campus and elsewhere. The trials found that water and energy can be reduced by 50%. “They involved gardeners,” says Anand Kusre, professor at the Desai Sethi Centre for Entrepreneurship at IIT Bombay. “They are the actual type of people who will eventually use it.”
An imported sensor of high quality can cost Rs 10,000. Proximal Soil Sense has a four sensor system with all the other components working at Rs 25,000. One acre needs two such systems. India now has around 7-8 million hectares of fields that use sprinklers.
The National Committee on Plasticulture Applications in Horticulture estimates that 27 million hectares of fields are ripe for drip irrigation. If the technology works, the company will address a very large market.