Roshan Zalte, a grape farmer from Maharashtra, rushed to his vineyard one morning to inspect his crop after a mobile app suggested his crop was infected with a common fungal disease called Downy Mildew. On inspecting some of the leaves, he found it to be true. “The crop seemed to be okay on the surface, but a closer look revealed the beginning of the infection,” says Roshan, who has a vineyard spread across 15 acres of land.
A few months earlier, the grape farmer had installed a device in his vineyard that claimed to help analyse weather conditions, predict diseases infesting his crop along with guiding him through their entire growth trajectory. The data would be shared with the help of an app.
Today, the farmer says, without the device he would remain unaware of the Downy Mildew infection on his crop for almost a week. The notification allowed him to make necessary interventions and control the spread of the disease. Since 2019, hundreds of farmers, like Roshan, have…