By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, NOV 07, 2023: DEPARTMENT of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW) in collaboration with Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Wadhwani AI) developed Krishi 24/7, the first-ever AI-powered solution for automated agricultural news monitoring and analysis, with support from Google.org. Krishi 24/7 will aid DA&FW to identify relevant news, generate timely alerts, and take prompt action to protect farmers' interests and promote sustainable agricultural growth through improved decision-making.

The introduction of Krishi 24/7 addresses the need for an efficient mechanism to identify and manage agricultural news articles of interest to aid timely decision-making. The tool scans news articles in multiple languages and translates them into English. It extracts essential information from news articles, such as headline, crop name, event type, date, location, severity, summary, and source link, ensuring that the ministry receives timely updates on relevant events published on the web.

Launching the initiative, Secretary (A&FW) Manoj Ahuja said that this news monitoring system will not just keep us informed but empower us to shape the narrative. In the spirit of continuous improvement, he further suggested that we remain open to enhancing this system as we move forward. As the world evolves, so should our tools and methods. Let us work together to ensure that this news monitoring system becomes a dynamic force, adaptable to the changing landscape of information, and a valuable asset in our mission to better serve our farmers.

Joint Secretary (Extension), Samuel Praveen Kumar briefly explained about the functions of the solution which is intended to provide a near real time monitoring of the news articles on Agri ecosystem published online which will assist the DA&FW to identify news of interest and provide a comprehensive mechanism to shortlist events, create alerts, and take timely action.

Associate Director (Ag), Wadhwani AI, Mr. JP Tripathi said that we want to build AI solutions for existing challenges where news monitoring and validation have been manual and time-consuming. A similar event tracking and analysis solution for disease outbreaks has been successfully deployed by the institute with the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). By collaborating with the DA&FW and other central government bodies, we are dedicated to equipping them with effective tools that improve the information flow through enhanced data-driven decisions.