Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly appearing as a tool to enhance productivity in almost every sector, including agriculture. An official in Punjab said the state government is planning to use AI in agriculture to improve farm productivity, sustainability and farmers' income. The government will take support from the Centre of Excellence at IIT Ropar to achieve its goals. Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian said new technologies must give clear benefits to farmers.
The minister on Thursday chaired a meeting at Punjab Bhawan, Chandigarh, to review progress and prepare a roadmap for field-level use of AI-based solutions.
How AI To Bring Green Revolution In Punjab
Assuring full government support for pilot projects and for expanding successful AI initiatives across the state, Khudian said the government will use AI technologies to increase productivity in the agriculture sector. The minister said he has directed officials to install automatic weather stations, involve farmers in data collection, support horticulture clusters and expand AI-based livestock productivity solutions.
He welcomed IIT Ropar's plan to start national-level courses on precision agriculture and AI in agriculture to train youth and government officers.
He said reserving seats for students and officers from Punjab would strengthen the state's agri-technology capacity. The collaboration is expected to help make Punjab a leading state in AI-driven agricultural development, improving resource efficiency, climate resilience and sustainable growth.
Pushpendra P Singh of IIT Ropar informed that the Centre of Excellence, with a financial outlay of about Rs 310 crore supported by the Centre, is working on AI-based crop advisory systems, multilingual farmer chatbots, yield estimation models, soil health analysis, weather tools and smart livestock management.
(With PTI inputs)