Concept Note d.com



RFP Details: Innovation Challenge Fund (ICF): Artificial Intelligence / Data Science in KarnatakaConcept Note 1.Name / Organisation Dr. Shrinivas BadigerAshoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Royal Enclave, Srirampura, Jakkur Post, Bengaluru 560064. Karnataka, India2.Email address / Phone numbersbadiger@3.Title of ProjectPositive Action to Harness AI Technology for the Greater Good in Agriculture4.Application for ICF ClusterArtificial Intelligence / Data Science in Karnataka: Combatting COVID-19 and climate change5.Co-Members of the Consortium *(Type – Indian Academia, Indian Business, International Academia, International Business, Indian non-commercial organisation, International non-commercial organisation, Other - specify)* Information not mandatory for the concept note stage.#OrganizationType1.International Rice Research Institute, Los Ba?os, Philippines.International non-commercial organisation2.CropIn, Bangalore, KarnatakaIndian Business6.If you do not already have agreed consortium members, please indicate here the kind of partners you would like to hear from. Government of Karnataka, Water Resources Department; Karnataka State Disaster Management Centre; Water and Land Management Institute, Dharwad; Water User Cooperative Societies/ Farmer Associations; Deshpande Foundation7. Are you content for us to publish your concept note on our web platform in order to encourage potential consortium members to reach out to you? Yes8.Funding Requested (up to ?250k)?245,000 9.Co-funding provided (if any) and sourceNo10.Please summarise your Innovation Challenge Fund research project in one sentence. 350 character limitThis project will enhance the application of AI to support smallholders farmers in Karnataka by leveraging funds from Corporate Service Responsibilities (CSR) of top companies in India and adapting crop technology solutions from established companies (such as CropIn) while ensuring objective monitoring of the interventions by public partners in the consortium (ATREE and IRRI).11.Please describe your project further. What problem does your pilot seek to address? Who are the potential beneficiaries and other stakeholders? What are the inputs and activities, and what are the outputs? What does success look like after 12 months of funded research? How will your solution reach the market place? 2500 character limitClimate change is emerging as a major challenge for sustainable agriculture, especially in India. Climate-Resilient Agriculture provides the space for achieving food security while meeting the sustainable development goals. It integrates the three dimensions of sustainable by jointly addressing food security and climate challenges. Efforts to roll out digital solutions for agriculture in India are typically biased toward high value crops that benefit large farmers, leaving out the poorest communities such as rural smallholder and subsistence farmers. Organisations including companies offering digital platform solutions survive on profits while their business costs are covered. These tools are often agnostic to the needs of poorer communities and hence cannot distinguish between high value crops grown in large acreage and staple food crops grown smaller farms. To make these tools available to larger masses partnerships between for-profit digital solutions companies and non-profit organisations is critical, along with harnessing CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) funds. With CSR, businesses and companies in India invest a fraction of their profits in the social welfare sector such as education, poverty, gender equality, and climate change. Opportunities exist therefore to leverage CSR funding support in order to free up the bottle neck for scaling up digital farm applications including farm digitization, precision farming, crop stage monitoring, satellite-based advisory and harvest. The private sector partner in the consortium, CropIn, has experience and tools to help companies monitor farms and farmers accurately for improvement in socio-economic conditions in rural areas. With public scientific entities (ATREE and IRRI) involved in the evaluation process, the feedback mechanism to the investors will be more reliable, transparent and sustainable. The data acquired from public sources will assist in identifying beneficiaries and providing assistance in decision making on timely completion of field activities and improvement in yields. Smallholder farmers in Karnataka will be the primary beneficiaries of this project with the initial piloting proposed in semi-arid parts of a sub-basin within the Krishna river basin. The main output of this project is full documentation substantiating evidence of digital solutions being applied to assist the farming community in Karnataka through sustainable agriculture practises. 12.What is ‘technological’ about your proposed solution and why might this be appropriate to the challenge areas?1000 character limitAreas under semi-arid climates are most vulnerable to climate change, while also contributing to the farming economy the most, including providing livelihood options for significant rural populations.The project will provide necessary scientific and practical evidence to scale-up the digital innovations for smallholder farmers and ease the effort to roll out appropriate tools to further experiment and disseminate in other parts of India with the support of CSR funds in India. This digital intervention includes monitoring crops and soil and providing climate-smart solutions including agronomic advisory to farmers at the right times during the crop cycle. It also includes mobile-based data collection, generation of dashboards and reports.Collaboration between private entities and public scientific organisations ensures social innovation, better outreach and provide the strategic scientific support and collate publicly available information efficiently for sustainable rural development.13.Is your proposed solution a response to the impacts of COVID-19, or an effort to contain the pandemic? If so, please explain. 1000 character limit Restricted physical movement and access to technology and markets due to COVID-19 has disrupted the conventional extension services to rural farming communities, thus making them more vulnerable against climate uncertainty, fluctuating markets and public health concerns. Digital solutions, particularly if enabled to reach smallholder farmers can achieve the needs of farmers in terms of access to information and support them in making the right decisions on their farming operations. At the same time, the digital platforms can also be used as an effective communication channel by the stakeholders in containing the pandemic and providing localized health advisory to mitigate COVID-19.Innovations in the technology sector including affordable arduino-based sensors and digital cloud platforms for analysing the data are useful tools to provide contact-less solutions to farming communities. 14.Does your proposed solution contribute to combating climate change or promoting a greener planet? If so, please explain. 1000 character limitThis project seeks to provide both adaptation and mitigation measures to deal with climate change by promoting information driven decision making in farming communities in Karnataka while also providing information to increase resilience against uncertain climate while promoting farming practises for a greener planet. By adopting the tools and digital technology platforms, farmers can make informed decisions to optimize farm inputs, thereby lessen the environmental footprint and contribute to reduction of carbon footprint in farming systems. Adaptation measures are targeted at improving water-use efficiency and assisting in timely farm management practices through advisories developed from digital solution platforms. Mitigation measures include reducing farm inputs including use of chemical fertilizers and reducing leaching of nutrients out of the crop root-zone, and hence reducing the negative impact on the environment.15.How is your proposal relevant to the development challenges of India? 1000 character limitIndia is at a tipping point, both in terms of economic growth and in the human development of its more than one billion citizens. According to the World Economic Forum’s report “The Future of Jobs 2018”, more than half of Indian workers will require reskilling by 2022 to meet the talent demands of the future.Key development challenges tackled by this project include promoting skill development, and healthier and more sustainable rural communities in India. Digital solutions provided to farmers will be an essential learning tool for farmers to support their skill development, whereas optimization of farm inputs prevent harmful environmental footprint and thus promote healthier communities and securing well-being of future generations.16.What consideration have you made of gender in developing your concept? Could your project address gender inequality or other kinds of inequality? 1000 character limitThis project will address gender dimension by considering disaggregating data based on gender in terms of decision-making processes and as well as making sure that the under-privilege groups will be given considerations when selecting study locations. In India, issues of gender cut across class and caste barriers. Our primary target of small and marginal farmers takes cognisance of the fact these are the communities are most marginalized with restricted access to technology and markets due to unaffordability. We will also consciously include women-headed households in the pilot project and monitor the benefits accrued to them due to adoption of digital solutions. The project will attempt to draw youth involvement in agriculture by leveraging their stronger capacity in taking up digital innovations, providing them with an important role to be the interface between digital platforms and the farming communities, and hence building the capacities of new generation of leadership.Notes: Please be kindly reminded of the primary criteria: relevance to the environmental and/or C19 agenda. See boxes 13 and 14. Except box 5, all boxes require mandatory response.In the interests of fairness, proposals that exceed the character limits will not be considered. ................
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