The document discusses how smart agriculture and villages can help address various issues faced in rural India. It outlines problems related to food storage, gas leakages, building safety, crop fires, cattle delivery, inefficient farming, and more. It then proposes several IoT-based solutions that use sensors to monitor things like moisture, gas leaks, intrusions, crop conditions, livestock health, water levels, and more in order to improve safety, productivity and living conditions in rural areas. The solutions discussed include sensors for moisture, soil quality, climate monitoring, leak detection, health monitoring, pesticide spraying, and fuel/diesel theft prevention.

1. SMART AGRICULTURE & VILLAGES
By Vinay Solanki
Founder – IoT-NCR
Director - IoT Strategy & Strategic Market Development

2. VS.
As per available statistics there are 676 districts in 29 states and 7 Union territories in India with a total number of 6,38,000 villages.
72.2% of population of our country lives in villages where as remaining 27.8% lives in about 5,480 towns and urban agglomerates
According to Shyama Prasad Mukherji’s Rurban Mission [SPMRM], the need of the hour is the “Development of a cluster of villages
that preserve and nurture the essence of rural community life with focus on equity and inclusiveness without compromising with the
facilities perceived to be essentially urban in nature, thus creating a cluster of Rurban villages”.
The Rurban mission provides several glimpses in the requirements of Smart Villages, whose main motivation is to prevent migration
of rural workers and youth to major urban cities by improving the living conditions in villages, and provide necessary amenities and
access to technology.

3. Food Storage: People store their staple food for long in large containers
or drums for a year and many traders keep wheat or rice in sacks for
long and sell all the year round. Many times due to bacteria or
inappropriate moisture the wheat or rice get damage if not checked on
time
Gas Leakage
A very common problem in Indian villages and cities.
Usage of LPG cylinder is not one of safest way of burning
fuel to make food, Pune city alone have 10 registered
cases of LPG leak per month and the situation is even
grave in our villages
Buildings: The loss of lives due to weak walls and roofs in villages, due
to excessive moisture in buildings is very common. In case of fire or
water hazard, while people realize the danger it becomes too late.
Crop Safety: Consider the case of the rice crop which is golden and
ready to harvest, a small spark can set the large field on fire.
Mushroom and Flower cultivation:
Flower and Mushroom cultivation is
an art of plucking it at the right
time, where even few minutes
matter

4. Cattle delivery is critical. Many times farmers loose calves which are
otherwise their assets, due to the negligence of cattle at the time of
delivery When an animal is under shelter and is tied or when people tie animals
with a nail on the floor or with a tree, usually, animals try to loose
themselves then the farmer has to go and search them.Inefficient Farming
Agriculture has become one of the fastest growing fields and today,
farmers, ranchers, and conservationists need a method to more
effectively utilize and conserve resources.
Tele density, which is an enabler of increasing technology, has been
measured at 43% only in India and much lower in rural areas.
During the last two decades, the average annual growth of agricultural sector was less than half (around 3.5%) of the overall growth of
the economy (around 7%). Agricultural sector provides an employment to about 52% of the workforce at present which was about
61% during 1990-91

5. Use a gas sensor plugged onto a micro-controller board
like Arduino with some logic built to alert the home
owner through an SMS, smart phone app or trigger a
manual alarm. Veerobot gas sensor solution sold on
Amazon India for Rs. 159.
Moisture sensor can play key role to monitor life and health of brick
walls and warn the owner ahead of time if the wall has become too
weak to withstand the load on it
A connected door alarm can be easily built using NodeMCU
ESP8266 with magnetic strip and will come handy for keeping the
homes safe from intrusion while the owner/family is away, this is even
more important in villages as they mostly have single family homes
with no guard or perimeter of safety around it
Sensors designed to monitor moisture, soil quality,
fertilizers level, climate control, weather forewarning,
optimized warehousing and planned storage can lead to
direct benefit for the farmers and land owners. A solution
designed to optimize the usage of water during irrigation,
monitor and control consumption of fuel in the tractor,
sensors that connected to cows, sheep, hens and other
animals to monitor and report any contagious
diseases, real time reporting of crucial farming data can
help in fine tune timing of harvesting

7. Few other solutions are soil moisture (image
below) and nutrients sensors, which are common
these days. Controlling water usage for optimal plant
growth and determining custom fertilizer profiles
based on soil chemistry.
Compost – Helps in controlling the humidity and temperature levels of hay,
straw, alfalfa, etc. Green Houses – Helps in increasing the production and
quality of fruits and vegetables by controlling micro-climate
conditions. Meteorological Station Network – A useful tool that would
forecast rain, snow, drought conditions, wind changes and ice formation. Claas
Equipment – Farmers can automate this equipment and get information on
how to minimize grain loss, improve crop flow, perform fertilization planning,
adjust nutrient balance and more.
Crop Water Management
Proper water management can boost crop productivity. This is a major
move and a boon for farmers because of the impending doom of water
scarcity. Water will never be wasted and farmers will be able to open
and close water gates in an effective manner through the apps in their
smartphones. With the sensors attached on the water sluice gates,
farmers will be able to do a trend comparison analysis. Through this,
farmers can calculate the amount of rain received in the current year
and decide on the minimum level of irrigation required for the crops.
Health
I don't know feasibility of
deploying this solution in rural
towns but this
company YoLo health is trying
solutions in villages. This is a
Health ATM that allows you to
become proactive about your
health and check your key
parameters such as blood count,
BMI, etc. cheaply quickly.

8. Water Tank Automation
Simple solution using hardware and software can be built
to monitor the timing of water inflow and accordingly
running water pump. Pump will be auto turned off when
the tank is full there by saving water flow from
overflow. Amazon is selling this one
Poultry & Pig farms: Devices need to develop to sense if the hen,
rooster or chicks are affected with any disease and which particular
bird or animal it is. The device can also help to count the number of
eggs laid in the poultry farm each day. The sensors can sense the
temperature alerts too. In poultry or pig farm business age/weight of
the bird/ animal matters, the sensors can sense which chick/animal has
grown to a particular age/weight and can be sold off in the market.
Diesel sensors: Farming depends on vehicles (tractors)
connected to generators, hence consumption of diesel is
large. The diesel theft is common. Diesel tanks in vehicles
should send automated alerts each time to farmers on how
much diesel has been used by his team and what is the left
over quantity
Automated pesticides sprinklers which can sense various types of
insects/reptiles/ animals such as mosquitoes, flies, snakes, lizards, mice
which are very common in villagesPeople are very religious especially
in villages, sensors can help in
avoiding sacrilege of holy books
which are leading to deadly
protests in rural

9. Thank You