Ramesh Kumar Sahni*, Sweeti Kumari*, Manorama Goutam# and Vijay Kumar*

*Scientist, #SRF ICAR-Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal- 462038

Indian agriculture has grown well with the help of several agricultural revolutions such as green revolution, white revolution, yellow revolution, blue revolution etc. Researchers and technocrats of the agriculture sector have brought several smart farming technologies to help farmers in reducing the input cost, increasing the agricultural output and maximizing the profits. An agricultural mobile app is one such smart technology which is very helpful to the farming community for maximizing the profit. In this technological era and popularizing smart mobile phones, mobile apps are there in almost every field such as social networks, news, health, travel, banking, games, calendars etc. and agriculture is not different. There are several agricultural mobile apps too, which helps the agricultural community to enrich the benefits of smart mobile phones and digitize agriculture for benefits.

Digital agriculture comprises of application of information and communication technology (ITC) for transmission of information and services working for making farming socially, economically and environmentally sustainable while helping in providing nutritious and economical food for all. Development and use of agricultural mobile apps are helpful in extending the agricultural-based government schemes information to the farming community of rural part of the country. The information transmission through mobile apps is acting as a game-changer for the agricultural community of India. These apps are beneficial in boosting agricultural business performance and reduce the adverse environmental impacts on agriculture. With the help of these apps, farmers can easily access information regarding agricultural advisories, weather, plant protection measures and timing, IPM practices, market locations and prices. These developments in the agricultural sector will help in bringing a significant change in the lives of even remotest farmers and farming business as a whole. Several mobile apps are making agriculture more easy, productive and profitable for the farming community and make agriculture sustainable. Below are some of the mobile apps useful for farmers:

Kisan Suvidha


“Kisan Suvidha" is a mobile app helpful for the farming community having a smartphone. This app has a very simple interactive interface which gives information to the farmers on current weather conditions, plant protection measures, dealer’s location, different market prices, agro-expert-advisories and marketing. The app also includes weather forecast for the next five days, nearest market information, market prices of crops/commodities, knowledge and information about agricultural machinery, seeds, fertilizers, chemicals etc. The app has the option to use in different languages, which makes it more widely usable by local farmers. Also, it has a provision to directly connect to the Kisan call centre to ask the queries related to agriculture and get advice from related experts.

IFFCO Kisan

This app provides information about current weather, weather forecast, agricultural advisory, market prices details of crops and commodities and agriculture information library in the form of imagery, text, audio and videos in several languages.

Advantages
  • Better production
  • Less input consumption
  • Resource conservation
  • Better preparedness to tackle the adverse situation
  • Better income with reasonable market prices
  • Easy access to the different marketplace
RML FARMER- KRISHI MITR



This app provides the latest information about the weather forecast and advisory, crop, commodity and mandi prices, agricultural machinery uses, usage of fertilizers and pesticides, farm and agriculture-related news etc. This app also gives advice and news related to different agricultural policies and schemes of the government of India. Through this app, a subscriber can get information about over 450 crop varieties, 1300 mandis and market place, and 3500 weather locations across more than 50,000 villages and 17 states of the country. This app is designed to give information on different aspect of farming habits with a specific tool such as Farm Nutri, which gives general and individual recommendations for nutrient that are present in fertilizer dosage.

Pusa Krishi



This app was designed by the Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) and provides information about different technologies developed by IARI. This app is aimed to increase the agricultural returns of the farmers. Pusa Krishi app also gives information about new crop varieties developed by the different institute of Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), resource-conservation crop cultivation practices, farm machinery and its implementation to farmers and farming community to increase agricultural returns from the field.

Agri APP



“Agri APP” is an agriculture app which provides comprehensive information about agriculture. The apps give details information about crop yields, crop-wise package of practices, crop calendar, crop protection and other agriculture-related services. This app helps the farming community to access information related to different crops category, crop varieties, soil/climate, time for different unit operation and storage procedures. This app also provides an option to chat with experts, agriculture-related news, video of latest agriculture-related technology, online purchase option for fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides etc.

Krishi Gyan

The app connects farmers to an expert of the agriculture field through Krishi Gyan option in the app where a farmer can directly ask questions to experts and get answers like several other social media platforms. In this app, other farmers can also see the question and provide their suggestions to the problem. The video options for learning new agriculture technology or process are also available in this app. The app also provides weather information, including the weather forecast.

Kheti-badi App


‘Kheti-badi’ app is specific to organic farming. It is targeted to promote and support organic farming and provide all the information related to organic farming and several issues one can face in organic cultivation of crops in India. Today’s agriculture is mostly reliant on genetically modified (GM) seeds, chemical insecticide, pesticides and fertilizers. This app helps to convert their chemical ways of farming into organic ways of farming. At present, the app is available in only four languages, i.e. Hindi, English, Gujarati and Marathi.

CC Mobile App


“CC,” i.e. Connected Crops app, is aimed to connect farmers with their crop. Through this app, a farmer can observe weather parameters such as temperature, wind speed, wind direction, humidity and moisture remotely and can compare these data periodically, say weekly, biweekly or monthly to assess the status of plant in the field. Data from the sensor are available via SMS/email alerts and can be stored and seen as graphical form.

Advantages
  • Better quality produce and higher yield
  • Optimized crop management
  • Better preparedness adverse weather and temperature inversion
  • Timely irrigation 
  • Timely harvesting

AgMobile

This app is helpful to farmers at every stage right from preparing the soil bed for planting the seeds or seedling to manuring and irrigation, to harvesting and monetizing the crop produce. It helps in observing the current weather parameter, weather forecasts and weather maps, information about current crops and commodity prices in different markets and seasonal comparison and capture news that are related to agricultural endeavour on the go. In this app, different data or insights are derived from bar chart and successful farming practice. With this app, you can also learn about commodity trading skills and listen to agricultural experts, crop advisor, economist, analyst, grain merchandiser, broker etc.

Advantages
  • Better yield
  • Information about the usage of different fertilizer and pesticides
  • Fast access to related subject-matter-expert
  • Better insights to take the right decision and action
  • Better quality produce and increased profitability
Machinery Guide App


This app is very helpful in precisely utilizing the farm implements and machinery for different unit operation such as soil cultivation (plough, rotavator, cultivator, roller etc.), manuring, sowing, planting, weeding, fertilization, pest control, harvesting, sorting, irrigation, etc. in the field. This app graphically demonstrates ways to optimize the use of the different devices in the field and keeps a track on them via GPS connectivity.

Advantages
  • Better yield
  • Better quality produce and increased profitability
  • Optimum use of farm implement and machinery
  • Better preparedness for adverse weather based on timely action on the weather forecast
  • Better accessibility to related experts and market place information
IBM Farmer advisory service


IBM advisory system uses data fusion-based approach in which weather data from Weather Company, satellites data, i.e. remote sensing data from satellite and field data from IoT integrated senor in the fields, i.e. local sensing system. These data are fused using Artificial Intelligence techniques and provide timely, affordable, actionable, scalable, localized advisory to farmers. It also provides some fundamental crop and soil parameters such as NDVI (plant health information), soil moisture etc.

Microsoft India’s Artificial intelligence (AI) based Sowing App


For cultivation of the crop, sowing time is the most critical factor which determines productivity and quality of the produce. Determining perfect time for sowing is the biggest concern for farmers. AI sowing app is developed by Microsoft India and International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), based on Machine Learning and Power business intelligence approach. This mobile app sends sowing advisories to the subscribed farmers for an optimal date for crop sowing. In addition to that, the farmers also get advisories about optimum sowing depth, fertilizer application based on soil type, manure application, seed treatment etc.

Krishi Jagran Mobile App 


Krishi Jagran mobile app is developed to provide agriculture-related news to the farmers and currently available in three languages (Hindi, English and Malayalam). This mobile app gives complete details about agricultural-related government policies and crop insurance plans. In this app, farmers and calculate premium amount, coverage and loan amount based on input details about crop, acreage and normal sum insured in the selected region.

Agri Market Mobile App


The Agri Market app was designed with the goal that farmers should get details about crop prices in the all nearby markets (in the radius of 50 km) and do not engage in the practice of distress sale of their crops. This mobile app determines the location of the farmers using mobile GPS and provides nearby market price details using the internet. In addition to this, farmers can also get information about the price of any crop in any market of the country using this app.

Conclusions 
In today’s era of rapidly advancing and expanding digital world, cheap internet, reduced cost of smartphones and easiness in developing new apps and software, mobile apps have attained great importance in almost all facets of life. Mobile apps have been utilised to support industries and businesses. Now, it is introduced in the agriculture sector too and helps farmers and farming related communities for the advancement of agriculture. In this period of digital India and advanced and smart agriculture systems, there are large nos. of hi-tech mobile apps being developed by industry, ICAR institutes and individuals every day. Use of these mobile apps and related automated technologies such as sensor networks, IoT systems, smart irrigation systems, GPS trackers, etc. will make crop cultivation and overall farming process more progressive, optimum and efficient. These apps help farmers take better land management decisions as it helps in monitoring soil moisture, combined with weather data, for better planning of planting and harvesting seasons. These digital innovations help farmers to reduce input costs, optimise input use efficiency, increase crop productivity, production and profits.