Agri Hackathon to provide direction for progress of Maha farm sector: Ajit Pawar
Mumbai: The Maharashtra government will hold the Agri Hackathon competition to provide opportunities to innovative researchers and also give a promising direction for the progress of the state’s agriculture sector, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, said on Tuesday.
This is especially when the effective use of technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the agriculture sector is necessary to make the state’s farmers more empowered, he pointed out.
“Through the Agri Hackathon, efforts will be made at the government level with the help of private sector experts and institutions to bring together young researchers, startups, agricultural experts and farmers in Maharashtra and solve agricultural problems with the help of modern technology and increase farm production too,” he added.
Ajit Pawar, who chaired the meeting on the proposed Agri Hackathon on Tuesday, said that the country’s economy is based on agriculture and agro-based industries.
“In addition to increasing the production of farmers in the state, an ‘Agri Hackathon’ will be organised to solve the problems in the farm sector and encourage innovations in it.
“Through this, new methods of irrigation including water conservation, modern solutions for sustainable agriculture, scientific use of pesticides and organic fertilisers and e-marketing will be taken to improve the sales chain of agricultural products,” he said.
Ajit Pawar further said that the state government’s initiative will help increase the use of modern technology in agriculture and increase the income of farmers.
The ‘Agri Hackathon’ will provide an opportunity for innovative research and in turn the farm sector in Maharashtra will get a new direction.
“Through this hackathon, an attempt is being made to find useful solutions for farmers with the help of technology. In this, smart farming, weather forecasting system, automatic irrigation technology, and new concepts for sustainable agricultural solutions will be presented.
“The teams participating in the hackathon will get an opportunity to present their ideas. Financial and technical assistance will also be provided to take successful concepts forward.
“This technology will be implemented through the government with the cooperation of private companies,” he said.
He expressed his belief that the hackathon would be an important step in finding modern and technical solutions to the problems in the farm sector.