IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd on Wednesday said it has developed around 25 smart technology-enabled farms in collaboration with individual farmers in order to help them enhance output, reduce input costs and boost income. IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd, a subsidiary of fertiliser cooperative IFFCO, operates in four major verticals -- smart agriculture solutions, cattle feed business, agri-tech and telecom and call centre services.

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The company deploys smart technologies like ’Automated Wireless Weather station (AWWS), Internet of Things (IoT) based automated drip irrigation system, soil moisture sensors and GIS-based remote sensing satellite imagery analysis in these smart farms. Each of the 25 smart farms, which is being used as a ’Demo Farm’, is spread in up to 5 acres.

Moreover, the company has around 40,000 acres of area under mid-layer precision tech integration such as remote sensing and data-driven farm advisory services. Sandeep Malhotra, MD, IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd, said: "Our endeavour is to set up islands of excellence where precision farming technologies are deployed across different geographies and crops so that farmers are encouraged to learn and adopt them in their own farms."

"We want to be looked upon as a ’house of precision farming’, facilitating farmers with advanced and beneficial practices, helping them in enhancing crop yield, nutrition, and optimum utilisation of resources," Malhotra said.

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In one farm at Bojnor in Uttar Pradesh, IFFCO Kisan Sanchar has partnered with Vikas Karanwal and Ateet Gaur to develop smart farms at their 4 acres of land parcel. The company has invested Rs 11 lakh for fencing as well as technology deployment in this farm located at Sikandari village under Tehsil-Chandpur.

The operational expenditure of Rs 3 lakh will be shared equally between the two partners. At this Bijnor smart farm, IFFCO Kisan is expecting 140 tonnes of sugarcane production and 12-13 tonnes of jaggery production. The company expects to sell jaggery at Rs 60-70 per kg.

IFFCO Kisan expects to recover its investment in the fourth year. The company said that it used 14 bags of urea and 4 bags of DAP (Di-Ammonium Phosphate) for the sugarcane crop. Normally, farmers apply 5 to 6 bags of urea and 2 to 3 bags of DAP in every acre of farming.

Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO) collabarated with Bharti Airtel and Star Global Resources Ltd and created IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd. The company offers services such as Green Sim, IFFCO Kisan Agriculture Mobile App, Kisan Call Centre Services, etc.

IFFCO Kisan Sanchar is also setting up Farmer Producer Organisation (FPOs) across various states.

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(Edited by : Anand Singha)