FarmPrecise 3.5.6

Climate change and increasing weather uncertainty have made agriculture and farming a high-risk endeavor. Traditional markers used by farmers to make decisions are no longer reliable due to changes in weather patterns and behavior of pests and diseases. Rising costs of agricultural inputs, declining productivity, market volatility, and low returns are challenging the attractiveness of farming as a livelihood and income source.

There is a necessity to provide farmers with a dynamic decision support system that is customized to their specific farm, offering weather-responsive advisories across key aspects of agricultural operations. This will assist farmers in mitigating weather-induced risks, reducing losses and production costs, increasing productivity, and enhancing incomes.

To tackle this requirement, the Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) has created FarmPrecise – a mobile application that produces dynamic weather-based, crop management advisories tailored to crop and farm-specific conditions. This empowers farmers to make informed and beneficial farming decisions.

FarmPrecise stands out for several reasons:

• It is participatory - farmers actively contribute to the advisory by providing essential farm and crop-related information and feedback.
• It generates weather-responsive, crop- and farm-specific farming advisories covering all stages of the crop cycle daily.
• It is dynamic – adapting to potential changes in weather conditions throughout the day and providing tailored advisories accordingly.
• It is customizable to farm specifics such as types of crops grown, dates of sowing, fertilizers used, soil type, and fertility.
• It offers integrated and holistic solutions while emphasizing environmentally-friendly practices.

FarmPrecise Advisory Modules: Five advisory modules are provided daily or as appropriate:

1. Module 1: Weather Forecasts for five days, updated daily.
2. Module 2: Integrated Nutrient Management including weather-responsive, yield-targeted optimum chemical, organic, and botanical formulations tailored to crop requirements and soil conditions.
3. Module 3: Irrigation Management providing guidance on when and how much to irrigate based on crop water requirements, soil conditions, and weather.
4. Module 4: Integrated Pest and Disease Management offering environmentally friendly chemical plant protection measures aligned with crop growth stage, weather conditions, and anticipated or observed pests/diseases. These advisories cover preventive and ameliorative actions with the option to upload photographs for improved pest and disease identification.
5. Module 5: General Advisories promoting good agricultural practices such as crop-specific land management, in-situ soil and water conservation measures, seed treatment, crop geometry, trap crops, pest-disease infestation identification, etc., as required.