Reliable databases relating to agriculture needs to be built up if big data analytics bringing in a sea change in many sectors has to benefit small and marginal farmers, speakers at the A. P. AgriTech summit said.
Addressing a session on ‘Harnessing big data for small farmers’ on the second day of the summit on Thursday, CEO of Agrisk Data Analytics Ravishankar Mantha said, with the collection methods being archaic data bases on agriculture in many States of the country were not reliable.
He added that Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat were the exceptions.
Unless there was reliable data to reach correct conclusions, the solutions that big data analytics offered could not be used, he said.
Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Cropin Technology Solutions Limited Kunal Prasad said the IT solutions were useful in speedy settlement of agricultural insurance claims.
Crop loss assessment
Mr. Prasad said he was of the view that big data analytics could help bring down the cost of the premiums. Big data analytics was particularly useful in assessing crop loss caused by natural calamities, he said.
Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods and Agricultural Jobs, World Bank, Parmesh Shah spoke of the challenges at the field level in making use of the data available.
Co-founder and Managing Partner of Dalberg Data Insights, Frederic Pivetta and COO of SatSure Analytics India Private Limited Prateep Basu spoke.
