FarmRise & IRRI Collaborate to Provide Agronomic Information and Advisory to Paddy Farmers

FarmRise (powered by Bayer), an Android mobile platform that provides agronomic information and advice to smallholder farmers, announced the signing of a Memorandum of Association (MoA) with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), an international agricultural research and training organisation dedicated to eliminating poverty and hunger among people and populations who rely on rice-based agri-food systems.

FarmRise and IRRI are collaborating to offer IRRI’s nutrition advisory to the farmers. IRRI’s rice-wheat Crop Manager (RWCM) provides a farmer with personalized crop management recommendations for rice and wheat grown in both rainfed and irrigated rice-wheat cropping systems.

For this to be achieved, FarmRise and IRRI will conduct an in-depth study with farmers on the usability and effectiveness of the IRRI feature within FarmRise and then launch the experience to all the paddy growing farmers in India by the end of 2022. Through IRRI’s nutrition advice, FarmRise wants to address the imbalance in fertilizer usage by farmers, which can help in reducing the overall cost and improving the net yield.

Speaking on the partnership, Simon-Thorsten Wiebusch, Country Divisional Head - Crop Science Division of Bayer for India, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka, said, “Rice in India is cultivated under varying conditions of altitude, climate, landholdings sizes, and farming practices.”

“To address these diverse needs of smallholder farmers, it is imperative that we provide field-specific crop and nutrient advisory to optimize yields and income and we are thankful to IRRI for this collaborative endeavour. Empowering farmers with such a tailormade, easily accessible and holistic solution continues to be Bayer’s priority. We are hopeful that our FarmRise platform will deliver on these commitments and further enhance farmer experience in consuming Agri knowledge and best practices.”

Speaking on the same, Dr. Bas Bouman, leader of the Sustainable Impact Platform, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), said, “Rice and wheat are typically produced on small landholding farms. As a result, farming practices differ among farmers across the country, depending on experience and the characteristics of the fields. An advisory mechanism that takes into account field-specific information and provides advice on nutrient management can address the constraints that limit their yield and profit such as adverse growing conditions and climate change.”

As part of this collaboration, agronomy advisory will be provided to rice growers in India, with a scope of expanding the services across the South-East Asian region in the future. The target group for this initiative is paddy-growing farmers and agriculture extension personnel. The aim is to educate them about this activity to get site-specific and right fertilizer recommendations based on soil fertility profiles.