These e-Plant Doctors Can Help Solve Farmers’ Crop Woes in Minutes. Here’s How.
This article was originally published on ‘the better india’ When K Pathi noticed the notorious Fall ArmyWorm attack his corn plants, he didn’t rush to get pesticides. He did something entirely different. When 49-year-old K Pathi, a farmer in Maramadakki village in Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu, noticed the notorious Fall ArmyWorm (locally known as…
Lockdown unlocking technology for India’s farmers
This article was originally published in indigenus, a blog from Nature India Rural communities grappling with livelihood issues and looking for support for farming activities are increasingly embracing technology for survival. Jayashree Balasubramanian, who heads communication at the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in Chennai, talks of her experience with farmers attending virtual ‘plant clinics’.
Teaching an app to help farmers
CABI and the start-up Plantix work together to improve the Plantix farmer app. As a result, the app is now able to detect several diseases for the first time. Worldwide, farmers face huge problems when pests and diseases threaten their crops. The stakes are high and the task to identify precisely the cause of the…
Pests in a pandemic? India’s plant doctors will see you online now
This article was originally published by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. During coronavirus lockdown, Indian farmers have been able to join ‘e-clinics’ to get a diagnosis of problems plaguing their crops, helping limit the damage When Victor, Mary’s husband, decided to travel abroad for work, he left her a plot of land to cultivate in southern…
Working together online to support farmers during lockdown in India
“Necessity is the mother of invention” – Plato This is a famous phrase, indicating that a need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem. The world is currently going through a difficult time due to COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in an almost-complete shutdown of all activities across the…
Lockdown support: farmers dial in to agri-experts for help
This article was originally published the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation website The phone never stopped ringing at this one place in Pudukkottai district, Tamil Nadu all through April 1st. The event was a special phone-in program organized by MSSRF in collaboration with Department of Agriculture, Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), Vamban. Agriculture advisors and farmers…
Training on biocontrol gives confidence to plant doctors from India
CABI scientists from its centres in India and Switzerland joined forces with colleagues from the Koppert Foundation to deliver a two-day training on using biological controls as part of an Integrated Pest Management approach to fighting crop pests and diseases. Koppert, who specialises in the manufacture of bio-based products globally, decided to support the course…
New plant doctors in India “monitor the field through a farmer’s eyes”
Launching of Plantwise training in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. With the support of the State Government of Madhya Pradesh, under an RKVY scheme, a 6-day training programme on Plantwise modules was conducted at the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), Jabalpur, in technical collaboration with CABI.
Farmers in India use biointensive methods to manage fall armyworm
In mid-2018, presence of the highly invasive fall armyworm (S.frugiperda) was confirmed in Karnataka State, India. Since then, Plantwise and partners have been on the ground working to create awareness among farmers and contributing to the development of safe and effective management of the pest. Under a project funded by the CABI Development Fund (CDF),…
Plantwise and Syngenta Foundation India train rural youth to be agri-entrepreneurs
In August this year, Plantwise signed a partnership statement with Syngenta Foundation India (SFI) to collaborate on their flagship programme, Agri-Entrepreneur Enterprise. Under the programme, mentors who support agri-entrepreneurs – known as AEs – in achieving a sustainable enterprise form a fundamental part in capacity building. Plantwise and SFI collaborated on training the mentors who…