Agricultural Electronics Part 1

"Agricultural Electronics" exits in bits and pieces already throughout the world but more so in developed countries. I have few thoughts here that I am going to put down.

India is predominantly an agricultural country. Crops that are dependent on rain in my state are grown between June and November. Fruits, vegetables are all either river or deep ground water dependent. When rains become unpredictable, water source from rivers become scarce; dependency on borewells increases.

Most of the Agricultural Borewell pumps over 3 HP run on 3 phase 3 wire (Delta) 440V AC. Power crunch results in three hours of 3 phase power during daylight and two hours during non peak hours mostly between midnight and 4 AM.

Power  and water utlization is more important than the duration of power.

This is what I mean:

1. Water is considered a commodity that is assumed to be around for ever and it is free-so not true. I believe we will run out of water before petrol.
2. Use of drip irrigation by farmers is very limited. Water delivery is through long channels in the earth to different part of the agricultural land. There is more water seepage in these channels than utilization
3. There is no active moisture sensing that decides if the crop/plants need watering. One ends up watering the same piece of land with no incremental output, waste of water
4. Human factor. Operator/user may not be around to opearte the starter/borewell, may not have night time access to starter
5. Required optimal crop/soil/water/weather combination- age old methods of cultivating, watering methods

Now that I have stated the problem, let's look at how it can be addressed.

1. Remote borewell operation
2. Drip Irrigation
3. Moisture sensing before watering
4. Crop based metered watering
5. Alternative Energy to drive water pumps
6. Educating the farmers and helping them adopt will have the biggest impact.

I believe it is possible to provide solutions to the" Power & Water" problem through Agricultural Electronics. I will discuss this in part 2.