The Karnataka Government on Friday announced signing of a MoU with Microsoft Corporation India Private limited with an intention to empower small holder farmers with technology-oriented solutions that will help them increase income. The solutions would use “ground-breaking”, cloud based technologies, machine learning and advanced analytics.
The Memorandum of Understanding will experiment with Karnataka Agricultural Price Commission and Department of Agriculture to help improve price forecasting practices to benefit farmers, a joint release said.
Microsoft, with guidance from KAPC, is attempting to develop a multi-variant agricultural commodity price forecasting model considering the following datasets - historical sowing area, production, yield, weather datasets and other related datasets, as relevant. For this season, Tur crop has been identified for this prediction model, it added.
“We are certain that digital agriculture supported by advanced technology platforms will truly benefit farmers. We believe that Microsoft's technology will support these innovative experiments, which will help us transform the lives of farmers in our state,” KAPC Chairman TN Prakash Kammardi said.