Agritech startup: Fasal, a pioneer in precision farming launches Water Credit Initiative

Precision farming agritech startup- Fasal has launched Fasal Water Credit to encourage its farmers to save water and money with sustainable farming practices. Fasal is the pioneer of precision farming and is an IoT based AI-powered intelligence platform for horticulture crops.  

It captures real-time data on conditions from on-farm sensors to deliver farm-specific, crop-specific and crop-stage specific actionable recommendations to farmers. 

Globally 70 per cent of the total freshwater is used for agriculture and in fact, India leads the world in annual agriculture water withdrawals. India withdrew a total of 761 billion metre cube of water (latest data available in FAO, 2016a), out of which the agriculture water withdrawal was a staggering 688 billion metre cube. 

That’s about 90.4 per cent water being consumed for agriculture in India. Farmers also over irrigate their crops which results in the decreased yield and loss of quality. Right now, the irrigation is dependent upon the guesswork of the farmers. Soil may look dry on the top level but retains water at the root zone causing farmers to over irrigate. 

Fasal brings “optimal irrigation” inaction by eliminating guesswork and using a “Data-Driven” approach, in result, leading to better quality and an increase in crop yield by up to 40 per cent. Fasal device provides numerous field-level parameters right in the palms 24x7x365. FASAL IoT device keeps an hourly track of the water tension at the primary root zone if the water level exceeds the system triggers action for farmers through Fasal app. Every farmer who maintains water below this level for maximum hours in a month, Fasal will refund his/her entire monthly subscription that is charged for the advisory. In essence every time a farmer saves water for India he makes money for himself. 

“We noticed that farmers over irrigate and this behaviour is common across regions and crops in India. In horticulture, we have documented numerous cases where the farmer irrigated 30–40% less than the previous season with the help of Fasal’s plot specific irrigation recommendations and had more yield and better quality as compared to previous seasons. So ‘more’ is possible with ‘less,” Shailendra Tiwari, the founder of Fasal said. 

He further added, “We are continuously working on Fasal Water Credit and plan to introduce more and more intrinsic motivations within the Fasal system to make sure that Fasal becomes a powerful force for sustainable and progressive farming in India. Agriculture organisations and farmers working in ensuring sustainable water usage in their production practises, Fasal can flawlessly help them do so.” 

Ananda Verma, the founder of Fasal said, “Our approach to innovation has always been incremental and outcome-driven and we believe in bringing visible and sustainable change to the ecosystem we operate in. We have saved about 3 billion litres of freshwater that is used in agriculture and we brought the concept of Fasal Water Credit, one of its kind, to reward farmers who save fresh water and practice sustainability. ” 

Fasal is constantly innovating and building technology to help farmers make data-driven and informed decisions. The company is also working on crop health assessment using satellite imagery and remote sensing with the vision to bring visible and sustainable change to the ecosystem.  

It is working devotedly towards sustainable development goals of India in agriculture like reducing the usage of non-renewable fuel sources, improvement in the soil health with less usage of fertilizers and the good health and wellbeing of the consumers reducing the pesticide usage up to 60 up to and increase yield up to 40 per cent to meet the zero hunger goal.