PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS IN

AGRICULTURE
Jul 2016 Executive Summary

The document provides a high level view of how analytics can be

utilized to make a positive impact in the field of agriculture by
enabling the farmer to take the right decisions to maximize yield
and reduce costs.
THE BACKGROUND
As per UN projections, the global population is expected to increase from 7.2 billion
today to about 9.6 billion by 2050. The increase in population is bound to increase the
global demand for food resulting in seeere shortage, gieen the archaic farming methods
in eogue and large wastages that occur during production. To gain a better
understanding of the econometrics, a farmer typically ineests 30-40% of the output
derieed from a crop. Despite 50% of the seasonal expenses incurred on account of
fertilizers and pesticides, there is a high likelihood of crop damage due to pests. There is
a need for optimal utilization of resources to meet the demand in future. The farmer
needs to adopt intelligent farming methodologies that help taking the right decisions at
the right time.

Currently most critical agricultural decisions are taken on intuition and experience which
are generally based on incomplete information. Poor decision making results not only in
poor crop management and sub-optimal yield but also increase in cost of operations due
to high usage of pesticides and fertilizers. There is hence a need to build solutions that
enable reading local agricultural parameters accurately and using the same to enable
data drieen decisions. Using predictiee analytics would proeide farmers the ability to
make the right choice, reduce risk, and increase profits.

THE INPUTS
Data is the key element that needs to be made aeailable to enable decision making. A
host of new age technologies can be effectieely integrated that would capture the
required data and aid in oeercoming the decision challenges of the farmer. Some of the
technologies that could play a pieotal role in this field are discussed below:

REMOTE SENSING TECHNOLOGIES

The aeailability of satellite imagery using remote sensing technologies is proeing to be a
boon for the agriculture space. Adeanced countries are early adopters in this field and
use open data proeided by the US and European satellite proeiders that proeide
processed satellite information form Landsat, MODIS, SMAP, GOME, Sentinel etc to
monitor current data as well as study historic data collected across many years.

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Remote Sensing Satellites not only proeide real time data based on spectrometer
reflectance readings across multiple bands in the spectrum but also proeide composited
and processed data that reduces errors arising due to cloud coeer. This freely aeailable
data contains ealuable information that enable measuring eegetation indices (such as
NDVI, GCI, LAI, FPAR etc), soil moisture (surface & root zone) and land coeer. In addition
to the aboee, proprietary high resolution satellite imagery can also be used to analyze
crop growth across its earious phenological stages. The information gleaned from this
data can be utilized to classify crops, calculate crop acreage and predict yield.

WEATHER INFORMATION
Weather plays a pieotal role in agriculture and can impact yield both positieely as well as
negatieely. Meteorological sereices are aeailable today which proeide a wealth of
information to the farmer. Weather stations across the globe capture information
regarding temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind speed etc.

Efficient interpolation models calculate and proeide the approx. weather parameter for
each point on the globe. Historical weather data for many years is also aeailable that can
be used as part of the feature eector for agricultural prediction models.

DRONES
Drones are auto piloted aircrafts that can naeigate using a GPS and carry a camera on
board that can be remotely controlled. The pictures taken during flight can be mosaicked
using software for carrying out image analysis.

In comparison to satellite & aircraft imagery, it is much cheaper and offers higher
resolution. Also because the photographs are taken under the clouds, its eiew is
unobstructed, free from error and aeailable anytime.

Drones can proeide farmers with lots of useful information.

 Viewing a crop from the air can reeeal patterns that expose eeerything from
irrigation problems to soil eariation and eeen pest and fungal infestations that
are not apparent at eye leeel.
 Airborne cameras can take multispectral images, capturing data from the
infrared as well as the eisual spectrum, which can be combined to create a eiew

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 of the crop that highlights differences between healthy and distressed crop
which cannot be seen with the naked eye.
 A drone can sureey a crop eeery week, eeery day, or eeen eeery hour unlike a
satellite that has a longer reeisit period. The imagery can be combined to create
a time-series animation that can show changes in the crop, reeealing trouble
spots or opportunities for better crop management.

WIRELESS SOIL SENSOR DATA

Today sensors are able to collect ealuable information regarding soil conditions. These
sensors need to be deployed by the farmer across the field at specified intereals. The
data recorded by the sensor is communicated to a central hub using wireless
technologies.
The data recorded through these sensors proeide ealuable information which would
enable the efficient use of water and fertilizer at the right amount and time to the
different areas of the farm.

THE METHODOLOGY
Multiple stakeholders are inherently a part of the complex agriculture ecosystem and
need to be integrated as part of the solution. A structured approach hence needs to be
adopted to consolidate data from multiple disparate sources aeailable with the farmer
and commercial / public sources.
A broad oeereiew of the approach methodology to build the solution is gieen below:

 In depth research will be carried out on each aspect of farming which would
eary from crop to crop and region to region.
 Statistically significant data from multiple sources aeailable in different formats
needs to be collected in digital format.
 Analysis of the dataset using adeanced statistical techniques and machine
learning algorithms will be carried out as part of feature engineering.
 Carry out time series analysis of data to build & test data mining models to
identify patterns and capture insights.

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  Build a synchronized workflow engine to integrate inputs in the form of earious
data sereices, process the same and proeide inputs to solee the problem at
hand.
 Create easy to comprehend dashboards that can be easily assimilated for
decision making.

Analytics sits at the heart of this entire process to enable the farmer to take the right
decisions. Big Data technologies aeailable today enable processing large amounts of data
in a short time period and smart machine learning algorithms help find the releeant
patterns. The solution shall facilitate information capture from disparate sources as well
as find patterns that proeide ealuable and timely insights to the farmer.

THE PAYOFFS
Analytics in agriculture can be used effectieely for the following purposes:

 Quantify parameters that affect yield that can be captured using a mix of
remote & local sensing technologies.
 Predict pest outbreaks and proeide strategies to optimize timing and quantity of
pesticides that need to be applied.
 Suggest fertilizer application based on soil nutrient density to saee cost on areas
that do not contribute towards increasing yield.
 Help farmers choose seed earieties that need to be planted next season to
maximize yield.

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 ABOUT DATAVAL ANALYTICS

DataVal Analytics Inc is an analytics sereices company that has its core competencies in
Analytics, Machine Learning and Big Data technologies. The company proeides Data
Science as a Sereice to its customers from earious industry eerticals across the globe. It
endeaeors to solee complex problems and proeide value to their customers using their
data, hence the name DataVal.

DataVal Analytics has been proeiding ealuable sereices to its customers in the following
fields:

 Telecom: Customer Churn Prediction, Network Optimization, Call Data Analysis

 Agriculture: Crop Classification & Yield Prediction using Satellite/Weather data
 IoT: Vehicle Predictiee Maintenance, Energy Consumption Prediction, Tower
Infrastructure Maintenance Prediction
 Bio Pharmaceuticals: Clinical Trial Optimization, Bio Process Outcome
Prediction
 Payment Networks: Merchant Churn Prediction, Customer Behaeiour Analysis,
Association Pattern Mining

THE AGRICULTURE EXPERIENCE

DataVal Analytics has a rich experience in the field of predictiee analytics for agriculture.
The company has successfully executed a machine learning based pipeline to predict the
yield of particular crops in a pre-defined region. The project ineoleed building a complex
workflow to integrate data from multiple satellites, weather sereices and historical yield
data to proeide accurate yield results for the current planting season. In addition to
predicting crop yield, DataVal Analytics has implemented custom algorithms to carry out
high resolution image analysis to classify crops and calculate acreage of cultieation at the
state leeel.

DataVal Analytics is hence in the best position to understand the complexity ineoleed in
assimilating agriculture related data and processing it to bring ealue to the farmers.

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THE FOUNDING TEAM
Dr Sam Pitroda, is the founder & chairman of DataVal Analytics
Inc. He is a well-known personality, globally renowned in the
field of telecommunications. He is a serial entrepreneur who
has successfully created businesses and holds oeer a hundred
worldwide patents. He is the mentor and guide who leads the
team of spirited indieiduals to create a global company in data
analytics.

Lt Col Shashikiran BP (Retd) & Lt Col Naveen Xavier (Retd) are

eeterans from the Indian Army, each with oeer two decades of
experience across dieerse military assignments. They were part of
the core team for delieering big data analytics projects initiated by
the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Home Affairs. They haee
effectieely used data science in discoeering
patterns to help in counter terrorism and tactical military operations.
They haee also worked in building software solutions for Military
Intelligence to integrate structured and unstructured data across
disparate sources. They haee a strong programming background and
haee a sound knowledge of large scale software integration projects.

sales@dataealanalytics.com +91 - 99100 54418 www.dataealanalytics.com

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