Indian farmers bring deep agronomic knowledge and strong dedication to their fields by consistently investing time and effort to sustain productivity. However, farmers continue to struggle with increasing cultivation costs, fertilizer shortages, labour constraints, and inadequate access to affordable and timely farm support services, advisory solutions, and mechanized equipment.
In the absence of dependable and accountable service providers, many farmers rely on informal sources of guidance often leading to delays and inconsistencies in farm operations and decision-making. These challenges are further compounded by the lack of precise and field-level recommendations and labour shortage during season. This results in inefficient input use, including the excessive application of fertilizers and other agri-inputs. This not only increases cultivation costs but also impacts productivity, profitability and long-term sustainability outcomes.
Impact / Outcome The initiative brought together organizations including Salam Kisan, PRYM Aerospace, Microsoft, State Agriculture Department, and financial institutions to support demand aggregation, technology deployment, digital enablement, implementation and financing for agricultural drone adoption for Drones as a service (DaaS). Leveraging AI-powered drone imagery and analytics, farmers can identify early crop stress, nutrient deficiencies, and areas requiring intervention, enabling precise application of water, fertilizers, and crop protection inputs only where needed. This targeted approach reduces input consumption, lowers cultivation costs, improves resource efficiency, and helps address labour shortages through mechanized operations.
The initiative significantly improved efficiency and resources use through drone-enabled spraying services.
• reducing water use from approximately 150-200 litres per acre under conventional spraying methods to just 15-20 litres per acre with drone-enabled spraying. Each drone can service up to ~2,000 acres per year, saving an estimated ~260,000 litres of water annually.
• Agri-input costs declined by around 30% through spot fertilization.
• Till now, the initiative has impacted across 4,50,000 farmers across Maharashtra while creating livelihood opportunities for over 200 trained drone operators.
