Visitors awestruck at Agri-Tech expo

Visakhapatnam: Even a cursory visit to AP Agri-Tech Summit–2017 at APIIC grounds in the city will leave the visitors with an impression that agriculture sector is seeing a paradigm shift.

With the advent of automation in agriculture and its allied sectors, the mechanisation happened in the era of green revolution is apparently becoming a thing of the past. Given the way the ground is being prepared for taking a giant leap from usage of agricultural machinery to sensor-driven solutions by incorporating Internet of Things (IoT), an unprecedented change is in offing for the farming sector.

Of nearly 50 stalls set up at the expo, several stalls have attempted to explain about the possible solutions through employing drones in the farming field. While a technocrat has toyed with idea of using drone to know about the soil moisture content, others thought of spraying fertilizers and sprinkling water through unmanned technologies.

These are in incubation stages and soon they would be developed into viable products in terms of both business and agriculture, says developers. The price of the drones has been pegged at Rs 2 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.

All the students turned curious and formed a beeline at the outlets to learn about the new technologies that have been unfolding in the agri-sector.
Another stall that draws attention of visitors is ‘Naa Panta’. Developed by a few young entrepreneurs, an app named as ‘Na Panta’ is like a one stop shop to farmers for all queries and information including day-to-day market prices, weather forecasts, fertilizer usages and many more.

The AP Animal Husbandry Department has put up a miniature of milking machine, which works both manually and through power based on the principle of imitating the calf suckling. Around 300 students and 200 farmers per day are being allowed to visit the expo.

By Y Abhishek Paul