Everyone is emphasizing that the agriculture sector can be revolutionized through cheap technology. Farmers benefit greatly from the use of technology in agriculture. But for farmers, using technology can be an expensive deal and not many farmers are technologically that sound.
So, a group of software professionals from Hyderabad have decided, they will become farmers for the next few days. They will cultivate a piece of land and sow the seeds over the next weekend to understand real-world agriculture challenges and find tech-enabled solutions.
There are 100 people in this team of software professionals who will do farming for the next 45 days. All the 100 people will work in five different teams on the land allotted to them right from sowing till they sell their produce. This program has been named as “Agriculture Hackathon”.
What is Agriculture Hackathon?
"The 'agriculture hackathon' is a first-of-its-kind event where techies, aided by an agriculture expert in each team, will do everything — from preparing the land to selling the produce — to understand challenges on the ground instead of asking a farmer," said Sundeep Kumar Makthala. Telangana Information Technology Association announced the competition in coordination with Telangana Agriculture Engineers Association.
For this purpose, a 2-acre plot of land in Yadavalli village, Utkoor Mandal, Narayanpet district, has been identified. Each team, consisting of four IT professionals and an agriculture specialist, will be assigned 121 square feet and problems to solve.
"Drone cameras for identifying pests, AI technologies for data analysis, robotics for automatic seedlings, sensors for water sprinkling, and other advances are all being considered. Along with farming, teams would be given a variety of technical problems to work on," he added.
"We can help more people take up farming by providing inexpensive answers to known difficulties and bringing farm mechanization closer to the farmer." Participants must also discover ways to market and sell their products digitally, which is one of the problems they face.
Makthala invited more technical experts to participate in the Agriculture Hackathon, describing it as a unique learning experience for technical experts working on computers for fixed office hours. In each phase, teams will study and implement various farming practices and innovations and will be guided by agricultural experts through discussions.
