Gramworkx Water Management
GRAMWORKX
Stage of adaption :
Crop Planning Stage
TECHNOLOGY BRIEF
We are building an IOT & advanced analytics based water management system for agriculture.
The IOT hardware consists of a series of sensors that continuously gather real-time microclimatic conditions of the farms. This data is processed through our algorithm, that takes into consideration key parameters like evapotranspiration and other unique soil and water depletion conditions to provide accurate insights to farmers on the water requirements per crop.
We are also working on developing Artificial Neural Networks, to provide spatial water requirements for crops across regions.
Both these technologies can have great impact across geographies, for water management in agriculture.
BENEFITS
• The primary benefit of the technology is to quantify irrigation schedule based on data: Irrigation scheduling, determining how much water and how often the water is required to the crop. For example, as a crop, potatoes are highly sensitive to water shortages in particular during the stolonization and tuber stage. When the moisture stress prevails at tuber initiation stage, the yield loss is greater (31%). Our technology helps quantify the water requirement based on the stage of the crop, soil type, weather parameters, elevation and helps define the water requirement based on the size of the land that one is cultivating.
• Yield improvement: With the adoption of precision water management the improvement in yield is ~30%
• Reduction in labor: Farm mechanizations and technologies lead to reducing manual labor.
• Weather prediction: Technology provides weather insights up to 3 days in advance.
• Remote monitoring and control of irrigation: Provides feasibility of remotely operating motor pumps and valves based on app or dashboard.
TECHNOLOGY READINESS
MVP stage
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Technology Not Protected
CERTIFICATION
Not Applicable
TARGET CUSTOMERS
• B2B – Contract Farming Companies (ITC, PepsiCo, Way cool, SV Agri) Contract farming companies in India for adoption towards water management as well as yield improvement
• B2C- Midsized and progressive Farmers
Our early key adopters are the progressive farmers who have already placed orders for adoption of such a technology and product.
SCALABILITY
In the first phase, GramworkX is targeting potato, a part of POTO (Potato, Onion, Tomato, Others) family; three crops Potato, Onion, and Tomato make up 60% of the vegetable volumes consumed in India. Fruits and Vegetables are cultivated in about 8.9 Mn ha in India and potato is grown in about 25% of this area.
Also, the average potato yield in India is about 50% of the average yield in advanced countries. Potato crop has two important stages – stolanization and tuber stages which are critical to the yield and are sensitive to the availability of soil moisture. There are about 24,000 mid to large potato farmers in India and GramworkX estimates that timely irrigation based on its data support systems (DSS) can help its customers increase yield by 30% which can translate to an enhanced income of Rs. one lakh per hectare.
The GramworkX solution is crop agnostic and can easily be configured to other crops as well. In the second phase, GramworkX aims to target banana, tomato, and grapes.
LIMITATIONS
• Technology especially hardware has costs associated. A large scale adoption needs certain incentives to purchase. New technologies need awareness campaigns which the government or stakeholders in the ecosystem can participate.
• Policies such as free electricity to draw out groundwater has led to negative environmental consequences in many parts of India and is counter intuitive to water saving technologies. There needs to be policy alterations for a sustainable future to enable food security.
TECHNOLOGY COST
Product model – Our unit cost of the basic product is INR 40,000 which includes both the hardware and software and has the following features
Andriod app and computer dashboard to monitor and control the following
• Provides water recommendation based on crop type
• Automated pump control
• Battery backup
• Theft Protection
• GSM based data collection
Free model – The software app provides weather data and POP for various crops including disease and pest management.
SOCIAL IMPACT
a. Social:
• Value creation for farmers
• Improve social standing, and community impact
b. Economic
• Food Security
• Cost savings
• Better yield, incremental revenue
c. Environmental
• Water savings
• Soil preservation
CONTACT
kisanmitr@indiancst.in
TOLL FREE
1800 258 2010
ONLINE HELP DESK
+91 97 429 79 111