Ministry of Agriculture appoints independent agencies to conduct crop cutting experiments on pilot basis across 100 districts in India

Noida, NCR: Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture has appointed Leads Connect Services Private Limited a Noida based Agri-tech company, along with two other independent private agencies, to conduct the Crop Cutting Experiments (CCE) in 100 districts across India. This is a part of Government of India’s flagship scheme, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) under which the agency will be conducting large-scale pilot studies for technology-based Gram-Panchayat level yield estimates.

Leads Connect, with its cutting-edge technologies such as Remote Sensing and GIS, artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics frameworks, will co-observe the CCEs conducted by state Government for PMFBY. In addition to this, Leads Connect will conduct few additional CCEs for wheat in various districts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, covering Gram Panchayats in 25 districts across these states. This pilot study may be extended to 200 districts from Kharif 2021 which is a part of Government of India Initiative to use technology for precise yield estimation and timely claim settlement under PMFBY scheme.

On the appointment, Mr. Navneet Ravikar, Chairman & Managing Director, Leads Connect Services Private Limited spoke that “this will be a smart union of traditional Random Number based CCEs data collection with a Satellite Remote Sensing technology based Random Smart Sampling methodology. In future there is a strong possibility that new methodology will replace the tradition method and reduce the number of sampling points with a better yield projection model or system. Our nation is a country of small hold/marginal farmers so this will collectively enable accurate and efficient execution of CCE, resulting in timely clearance of claims with a precise production estimates for Agriculture planners.”